


Reflex Memories

by sariane



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amnesia, Bucky Barnes & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Identity Issues, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Reconciliation, Slow Build, aka Steve and Bucky Get Their Shit Together, gratuitous stealing from the comics, post - Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so many cameos from the Marvel universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-25
Updated: 2014-06-25
Packaged: 2018-02-06 03:33:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1842814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariane/pseuds/sariane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes never remembers who he is.</p><p>That doesn’t stop him from falling in love with Steve Rogers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【授權翻譯】Reflex Memories](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4405520) by [Jawnlock123](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jawnlock123/pseuds/Jawnlock123)
  * Translation into Русский available: [Рефлекторная память](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11611680) by [Red_Sally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Red_Sally/pseuds/Red_Sally)



> This was supposed to be a 2k what-if-Bucky-never-remembered character study. Still don't know how this happened.
> 
> This fic contains major spoilers for Cap 2!
> 
> As always, I stole a lot of stuff from the comics for my own twisted needs. (Every single character is from the comics. WHOOPS.)
> 
>  **Warnings:**  
>  -Canon-typical violence  
> -Mention of smoking and alcohol consumption  
> -Portrayal and discussion of PTSD, depression, and other anxiety disorders, anxiety attacks, etc.  
> -Swearing  
> -Winter Soldier-typical stuff (as related to two characters): amnesia, brainwashing, dehumanization, human experimentation, non-consensual memory modification, etc.  
> Please let me know if I've missed a warning!

_“But whatever the reason, though we now have a live subject, there appears to be considerable brain damage. The subject has no memory of his previous life. What he does have…are reflex memories. He knows the things he did before; how to fight, particularly, how to speak four languages, including, thankfully, Russian, and many other things. But he has no idea how or why he knows these things. He is nearly a blank state, but an incredibly dangerous one…”_

_– Captain America #11, Ed Brubaker_

 

 

***

Bucky Barnes never remembers who he is.

That doesn’t stop him from falling in love with Steve Rogers.

*

Steve finds him.

At first, Steve brings him back to Avengers Tower and New York, so optimistic and full of hope that he doesn’t know how to turn Steve down.

Steve tells him stories, about his parents, his sister, and their little lives in Brooklyn – from Coney Island to the Stark Expo, and a HYDRA base in Italy. He listens to memory after memory of trenches in France and snowy missions from years long past; the only missions he remembers are filled with different snows. It all sounds like a story. Like he’s reading an old diary entry he doesn’t remember writing, the words all his, but not the memories. It feels right. It sounds right.

But something isn’t right, and he isn’t the James Buchanan Barnes that Steve Rogers once knew.

He considers lying, but Steve looks at him with such naked hope and _want_. Steve’s been looking at him that way since he was found. There is something inside of him that tells him to stay with Steve, to trust him, keep him safe. That’s all that’s left of who he was – and it tells him, _Pretend. Pretend to be Bucky Barnes._

In the end, he thinks his decision to tell Steve the truth is the only part of Bucky Barnes left in him.

*

“What should I call you?” Sharon Carter says, leaning across the CIA interrogation table.

This is his plea bargain: HYDRA intel for a pardon. He tells Carter everything, she lets him walk free. (She is not going to let him walk free of surveillance; so he will not tell her everything.)

He shrugs. “Whatever you want, doll,” he winks, fronting like it’s still his job.

“Captain Rogers says you’re going by ‘James,’”  Carter says, watching him carefully. “But I’ve only ever seen other people calling you ‘Bucky.’ Do you like ‘Bucky’?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs again.

“Why?” she asks, like she genuinely cares. It would make him look apathetic to shrug a third time, so he cracks a smile instead.

“James Buchanan is my favorite president,” he jokes.

It’s better than “The Winter Soldier.”

*

Clint Barton helps him move out of Avengers Tower, even though he doesn’t have many belongings. Clint’s a good guy, appropriately skeptical and cautious, and funny.

Steve’s eyes grow sad when he tells him he wants to move out, but he nods and says he understands. When he tells Clint, the guy laughs and tells him he’s lucky to be able to escape the chaos. The truth is, it’s hard, harder than Clint would ever think.

Most people have years of memory to build on: they know how to ride a bike, bake cookies, order pizza, how to wash laundry, play Go Fish, and all the rules of baseball. He has nothing – other than what HYDRA has given him. They left him with muscle memory; the Winter Soldier was training, discipline, reflex. Everything else, he must build from the ground up.

Steve had to learn how to live in a new century.

Bucky must learn how to live.

He starts with his own place, where he can do things for himself without someone hovering over him, or an AI watching his every move. Bucky’s new apartment isn’t anything to brag about, although Stark offers to pay for something fancy. Stark tells him to take his pick of any apartment of the city. Bucky makes his choice carefully.

He buys what little furniture he needs secondhand. Clint helps him carry the couch, bed, and chairs up the stairwell (despite the fact that he has a metal arm and a certain supersoldier at his beck and call). Clint complains about his back, but laughs and cracks jokes about Bucky’s weird neighbors.

The apartment isn’t spacious, but it feels empty. The walls are painted a neutral color, the rooms separated by sturdy doors that lock, the carpet thick enough to muffle footsteps – unless you know where the creaky floorboards are. He’s already put in thick blinds. Strategically, it’s a nearly perfect place to live.

“Nice place,” Natasha Romanoff says as she appears out of nowhere and steps into his apartment, conveniently _after_ they’ve finished carrying up the last piece of furniture.

“You couldn’t have shown up five minutes ago?” Clint huffs from the couch. He’d collapsed on it as soon as they’d dropped it.

“Wouldn’t want to bother you two,” she smiles. “Should’ve chosen a bigger place, Barnes, there’s not even a guest room.”

“It’s a pull-out couch,” he shrugs, before he realizes what she’s doing. Bucky crosses his arms and narrows his eyes. “What game are you playing, Romanoff?” he asks.

“I was _just_ asking an innocent question,” she says, laughing.

“Innocent,” he repeats. _Yeah, right._ She’s feeling him out, trying to see if he’s chosen the strategically valuable apartment in Brooklyn because he thinks it’ll jog his memory, or because he thinks the pain of familiarity will keep Rogers away. Bucky narrows his eyes at Romanoff.

“You _do_ know the meaning of that word, right?” she says, tilting her chin up and maintaining the eye contact. It’s aggressive body language. She’s testing him.

Clint eyes the both of them carefully and raises his hands in mock-surrender.

“I’m not getting in the middle of this,” Clint says, retreating from the room towards Bucky’s kitchen, leaving them alone. Just like Romanoff wanted.

It’s just the two of them, now. Two assassins, two spies, two people who no longer have to hide their fangs behind masks.

“What game are you playing?” he repeats, quietly enough that Clint won’t be able to hear from the other room.

“You say you can’t remember Bucky Barnes,” she says, pretense abandoned. “I don’t believe you.” She’s efficient – he has to give her that. She cuts to the quick and expects the same in return.

“I remember flashes,” he replies. “A few words, a moment, a feeling.”

“Rogers says you don’t remember him,” she says, tilting her head to the side.

There it is. Rogers.

“I don’t,” he replies, because that’s what Rogers needs to hear.

Romanoff leans closer, smiling at him like the cat that got the cream, and whispers, “I don’t believe you.”

She’s gone before Clint returns to the living room, carrying three beers and a forced smile.

*

What he remembers is this:

_Warm hands, soft eyes, a laugh like a sin, the salty smell of sea and sand –_

_Iron and blood, blood and sweat, burning flesh, something in the air like the scent of lightning in the storm, a promise, a vow, a – a curse._

_– This is everything, this is your everything, and you keep it safe._

When that’s all you have left of who you are, on what other thought can you build your world?


	2. Chapter 1

As the years pass, the Avengers grow into something bigger than ever intended. There are the founding members (Black Widow, Hawkeye, Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America), the secondary joiners (Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Iron Patriot, Vision, Falcon), and the newest additions to the team (Ant-Man, Wasp, Captain Marvel, Black Panther).

There’s another group on the west coast styling themselves The Defenders, some kids in the city have formed their own Avengers (despite Stark and Rogers’ efforts to stop them), and last Bucky heard, Sharon Carter was heading select agents on black ops missions.

The Avengers is more than a team, now. It’s a family.

Bucky feels uncomfortable sitting in Avengers Tower amongst the others, but his Avengers ID card had called him in. He might not be a regular Avenger, but he doesn’t turn them down when they need the Winter Soldier. It’s the least he can do.

Stark briefs them all on the situation in his characteristic technobabble: an invasion fleet or an intergalactic war or something serious and probably apocalyptic, Bucky can’t remember the details. He’d rather have a file of concrete details instead of this mess of details and motivational speeches.

From the back of the room, Bucky can see all of the Avengers. They’re all paying rapt attention – except for Rogers, who seems distracted. Bucky trains his eyes on Captain America. He’s standing at Stark’s side, face closed-off. He’s pissed off about something.

“Team Alpha will be going to the Savage Land, which I hear is lovely this time of year; Team Beta is staying right here in New York, and Team Gamma is going with me to Mars,” Stark says to the small crowd.

“Let me guess,” Dr. Banner sighs from the front. “I’m on Team Gamma.”

With a laugh, Stark begins to divide them into groups. “On Team Alpha we haaave…Black Widow, Winter Soldier, Black Panther, Wasp, and the alpha dog himself, Cap. On Team Beta…”

Bucky tunes out the rest as he heads over to gather with his teammates. He feels dread knotting up his insides, even though it’s ridiculous to react this way. He doesn’t have anything against the Savage Land, and he definitely isn’t  interested in going into space, but he hates missions with Captain America.

At least Stark knows well enough to put him with the Widow. Natasha nods at him respectfully – they still aren’t friends, but she seems to have some kind of faith in him that the others don’t seem to share. They even train together regularly. T’Challa, the Black Panther, is mostly quiet as always, but Van Dyne makes up for it with her usual cheerful chatter.

“Did you want to go to space?” Jan asks Natasha. “I kinda wanted to go to space.”

“You wanted to get eaten by aliens in space?” Natasha replies with a smile.

“Nah, never mind,” Jan sighs. “I’d rather get eaten by tigers in the Savage Land.”

They all head towards the docking bay where the quinjet is waiting for them, passing by Stark’s team on their way. Rogers is still talking with Stark – arguing over something, as usual.

“I thought we decided that Hawkeye was on my team,” Cap is saying to Stark with a frown.

“No, Hawkeye wanted to go to space. Hey, come on, I put Barnes on your team instead, he’s a sharpshooter, what’s the big deal?” Stark says flippantly. Bucky looks straight forwards and slows his pace slightly, pretending like he’s not eavesdropping.

“Tony,” Rogers says, gritting his teeth, “you can’t just change the teams on me. I didn’t want Barnes on my team, I wanted—“ he cuts himself off, looking up to see Bucky passing him. “Never mind,” he hears Steve say in a low voice, a deep, biting sigh cutting through him.

Bucky heads out to the quinjet, chest falling heavy like he’s being filled up with lead. Wordlessly, he walks past the others and straps himself into one of the two pilot seats, as usual, waiting for T’Challa to slide into the other.

“I’ll take the co-pilot’s seat,” Rogers says from behind them, before anyone can say a word. “Everyone, buckle up.” He sits down beside Bucky, sparing him only one brief glance.

Bucky presses his lips together in a tight scowl. Rogers doesn’t want to be here. _Bucky_ doesn’t want to be here. He’s not going to enjoy this.

“You ready for this?” he asks, lowering his voice so that only Bucky can hear.

Wordlessly, Bucky nods. Together, they take the quinjet into the skies.

*

Bucky opens his eyes to darkness. His head aches – his entire body aches – and he smells nothing but dirt, sweat, and fear. He closes his eyes.

A moment later he jolts fully awake with a start, cursing and jumping to his feet. He hits his head on something.

“You’re awake,” he hears, and startles away. A light comes on.

“Sorry for startling you,” Rogers says, holding up a small flashlight. “I was trying to conserve the battery. This flashlight’s from the 80’s, at least.”

“Wha – where – where are we?” Bucky asks, scrambling into a sitting position, careful not to brain himself again. His head is killing him, his vision wavering at the edges, the flashlight piercing his headache. _Concussion_ , he thinks. _Damn it._

“You don’t remember?” Rogers asks, brow furrowing in open concern.

Bucky looks around. They’re in a tight space, surrounded by rocks and giant slabs of cement. A cave in. The floor is cement scattered with dust, dirt, and random debris. They have to be underground somewhere – far underground, as there’s definitely no light filtering through.

“We’re in the Savage Land with a team,” Rogers says. “In Fury’s old bunker. We were tracing a signal we found down here when there was an explosion. We’re waiting for them to dig us out.”

Groaning, Bucky looks down, checking himself for injuries. “I don’t remember any of that,” he says with a frown. “We were with a team?”

“Yeah, Natasha, Jan, and T’Challa,” Rogers says. “They were aboveground, fighting a guard android when we left them. Comms have been down since the cave-in.”

“So we’re the only ones down here,” Bucky says, mentally cursing his luck. “And you – you’re fine, right?” He looks at Steve, who doesn’t seem to be bleeding. He still has his shield, which is good.

“Yeah,” Rogers says, waving him off. “What do you remember?” he asks in a guarded voice. Bucky sighs.

“Um,” he says, gathering his thoughts. He watches as Rogers waits with baited breath, and it hits him – Rogers is wondering if the blows have jogged his old memories. Even after these past few years, he hasn’t given up hope.

“I remember Stark putting us in teams,” he answers, screwing his eyes up. “Flying a quinjet, maybe some fighting?” His throat feels tight with the realization that he’s lost more memories, more time. His hands clench into tight fists, his metal arm longing to crush the nearest rock into dust.

“You’ve lost only a few hours,” Rogers tells him. _Damn_. He’s reading him too well. “We went ahead of the others while they held off the android. We disabled the signal and were headed back up when the explosion hit, causing the cave-in,” he reports, eyeing Bucky carefully. His vision shifts away as he finishes, “You dived over me, held my shield over us.”

Bucky feels his mouth go dry. Rogers isn’t looking at Bucky anymore, but staring at his shield where it lies. Maybe he’s reliving the cave-in. Maybe he’s imagining times long past, as he is far too likely to do when Bucky is beside him.

“I don’t remember it,” Bucky says tonelessly. He feels like he’s said those words a million times before. He has – he’s listened to Steve’s stories far too many times, shrugged and turned away in disinterest as the memories fail to click into place. He is no stranger to the disappointment in Rogers’ eyes.

Bucky reaches forward and takes the flashlight from Rogers’ hand. He turns it off under the pretense of saving the batter, when he’s really saving himself the sight of Rogers. When he closes his eyes against the darkness, he turns his thoughts inwards. 

Bucky Barnes was a different man before, of that he is certain.

But who he is now? Who was he minutes ago, when he dove on top of Rogers to save his life? He doesn’t remember that moment any better than the millions of others he’s forgotten.

“You know,” Rogers starts. Bucky braces himself for an anecdote, another long lost memory. But then, Rogers hesitates. It can’t be a memory, then  -- not unless he’s found his tact within the past few years.

 “What?” Bucky spits out in exasperation. It only serves to cement Rogers’ silence.

A moment passes in stuffy silence, the rocks and the darkness baring down upon the two of them, crushing them in a new way.

“I didn’t mean it how it sounded,” Rogers says nonsensically, like he’s halfway through a conversation in his own head. “I mean – what you overheard me saying to Stark. That’s not what I meant. My beef is with Tony, not you. I hate it when he changes things behind my back.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky says impartially, emotionlessly, like he doesn’t have a care in the world.

“Come on, James, like you didn’t hear me?” Steve says skeptically. “I’ve been around Natasha long enough to tell when someone’s eavesdropping. Next time, concentrate on what you’re staring at, so it doesn’t look like you’re checking out Ant-Man.” There’s a moment, and then Rogers says, “Unless you were, which—“

“Jesus, Rogers,” Bucky spits. “Can you just call me ‘Bucky’ like everyone else?”

He’s glad he has the flashlight, because he’s pretty sure Rogers would choose this moment to click it on and make some heart-wrenching face in Bucky’s general direction.

“I thought you didn’t like that name,” Rogers says – like he’s actually _talked_ to Bucky in three years, like he _knows_ him.

“It grew on me,” he shrugs. Everyone called him Bucky from the start. “Old habits die hard,” he says, and it almost sounds like a joke.

“’Bucky,’ then,” Rogers says. Bucky thinks he can hear his heart breaking as he says it. “But on one condition.”

“What?”

“You stop calling me ‘Rogers.’”

Ah. Bucky imagines the smirk, now, and clicks on the flashlight to see it on Steve’s face.

“Alright, Cap,” Bucky says cheekily.

“Wow,” Steve says, “hilarious.”

Bucky clicks the flashlight off before he betrays himself with a smile.

The dark gives way to more silence, which is dangerous. He takes a deep breath, like he can swallow the heavy, black air and fill himself up with that instead of his own thoughts. It doesn’t work, and Bucky starts thinking again, about names, about nicknames.

“Hey,” Bucky says, swallowing against the dust and grit in his mouth, “can I ask you a question?”

“You just—“

“Another question.”

“’Course you can,” Steve says, openly curious. Bucky swallows again.

“How’d he —how’d I get the nickname?” he asks.

 _Curiosity killed the cat,_ he thinks. Bucky hasn’t asked Steve a question since the first six months after he’d come back, when he still thought his memories might return.

“I gave it to you,” Steve answers quietly. “A lotta guys had nicknames, or they went by their middle name – especially when they had their eye on a dame. The day we met, you said, ‘My name’s James Buchanan Barnes,’ and I said, ‘Wow, that’s a name. Can I call you Bucky?’ Guess it stuck.”

“Didn’t like James?” Bucky asks. Steve laughs to himself, and it’s like there’s a joke Bucky isn’t in on.

“No, I did,” Steve says, a smile in his voice. “It just seemed to me like ‘James Buchanan Barnes’ was a bit of a mouthful. Couldn’t even spell ‘Buchanan’ until the second grade. Didn’t even know he was a president until then.”

“Shame on you, Captain America. I hope you know all the names of the Presidents, now,” Bucky says, the words tumbling out of his mouth before he realizes he’s joking.

“Well, I’m a bit behind on the ones since Truman,” Steve replies.

Without thinking, Bucky lets out a surprised bark of a laugh. It fills his stomach, fills the small space they’re stuck in, and shocks him back into silence, the laugh ringing in his ears.

They lapse back into stillness after that, waiting to be rescued, Bucky wondering what’s going through Steve’s head right now. Whatever it is, he doesn’t share it.

*

Once the threat has passed, after they’ve been rescued from the caved-in bunker and flown back to New York, Bucky goes back to his apartment, exhausted and alone.

He falls on his bed and closes his eyes, ready to pass out for a good fifteen hours. But when he does, he can’t seem to find sleep, his mind choosing instead to search through the words Rogers said to him in the collapsed bunker.

It scares him, how well Steve can read him sometimes. After Steve found him the first time – when they were still hoping his memories would return – he had been unnerved by the way Steve could sense his moods, knew what shows or music he’d like and what he wouldn’t, and could even guess what he’d say, sometimes.

He’d sit silently in Steve’s Avengers Tower apartment and Steve would say, “Don’t sulk like that, Buck, let’s go to the movies,” like he really _knew_ him. Like he was still the Bucky that Steve grew up with. (That it _worked_ on Bucky was not important.)

_Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt._

Bucky looks up to see his phone ringing on vibrate his nightstand. He reaches over and grabs the phone.

“Hello?”

“So, you’re awake.” Natasha Romanoff’s voice is clear on the other end of the line. Bucky blinks slowly.

“What?” he asks, feigning sleepiness.

“I called to wake you up,” she says. “Concussion, remember?”

“Did you draw the short straw?” Bucky mutters. He rubs his eyes. “Concussion healed hours ago. Side effect of my knockoff serum.”

“Convenient,” she drawls. “So it was your mind that was keeping you up. What’s on it?”

“Hmmm…A tall, hot blonde,” Bucky says, putting a smirk into his voice.

“Rogers, then,” she replies flatly. When Bucky stays silent out of disgruntled surprise, she continues, “He has a way of sticking in your head sometimes.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, giving up all pretenses. “That he does.”

Bucky rolls over and turns on the lamp, sitting up in his bed. He finds a shirt to pull on while Natasha speaks, suddenly feeling cold in the chilly air of his apartment.

“You two were down there for a few hours,” she says. “Talk about anything interesting?”

“Not really,” he shrugs. “Just. Haven’t talked to him in awhile, I guess. He’s more distant than he used to be.” It’s an understatement – Steve used to stick with him like glue, and now he seems like he doesn’t want to be in the same room as Bucky for more than a minute. Bucky can’t say the feeling isn’t mutual, honestly.

She hums into the phone. “Look, I didn’t call to hear you talk about Rogers,” she says. “If you have a problem with him, if he’s not respecting your distance, don’t hesitate to tell him. Sometimes he needs that.”

“Why did you call, then?” Bucky asks, pressing the phone more tightly to his ear.

“To make sure you were okay,” Natasha sighs. “I heard you had retrograde amnesia, and as someone who’s had their mind fucked with before, I know how easily you can get lost inside your own head.”

“Do you?” he asks, forcing himself to sound toneless and uncaring.

“Don’t pull that apathetic bullshit with me, Barnes,” Natasha says, lowering her voice. “I’m not going to think any less of you for having emotions. I just wanted you to know that, whatever it is that’s keeping you up? You can talk about it with me, if you want.”

“And,” Bucky swallows, hesitating, “and if that ‘whatever’ is Rogers?”

To his surprise, she lets out a small laugh. “Well, I guess I called to hear you talk about Rogers after all,” Natasha says.

*

Bucky finds it easy to talk to Natasha, in a way that’s different from Clint. The three of them have shared experiences – different contexts, different issues – and they build on that level of understanding. Bucky doesn’t remember who he was, Natasha doesn’t know if her memories are what they seem, and Clint sometimes wishes he could forget.

Best of all, they do not expect him to be someone he is not.

*

Absurdly, his friendship (if that’s what it is) with two founding Avengers gets him invited to all of the Avengers events. The Winter Soldier isn’t officially an Avenger – he turned down Rogers’ offer a long time ago – but he’s called in whenever they need him.

Now, he’s texted whenever they think he should get out of his apartment.

Of course, Natasha’s text neglects to tell him that the “night out with a few friends” at a local club is actually a full-blown surprise birthday party for Captain America.

Bucky stands up against the wall in the red, white, and blue party that’s enthusiastically been organized and decorated by Janet Van Dyne. He feels like an idiot. He hasn’t brought a present, he doesn’t want to be here, and it seems like all of the Avengers have come (including some of the kids, who seem to have snuck in).

Tony, Jan, and Carol lead a rousing chorus of “Happy Birthday,” and Bucky watches from the edge of the room as Steve blows out his candles.

“One hundred years old,” Sam laughs, patting Steve on the back. “And lookin’ good, old man.” Steve mutters something under his breath that makes Sam tip his head back and laugh.

Bucky shoves his hands into his pockets and looks around, casing the place for the tenth time tonight, checking for the nearest clear exit. He turns towards a side door near the bathrooms that empties into an alleyway.

It’s quiet and shadowy in the alley, the hot night lit only by a nearby streetlamp. It casts the dumpsters and trashcans in a thick yellow light. Bucky takes a deep breath though his mouth, ignoring the smell of trash and steaming sewer, and reaches into his pocket. He picks out a pack of cigarettes and lights one, hoping the pretense will keep anyone from the party from seeking him out.

He’s unlucky, though, because the door opens a moment later, letting out a burst of light, music, and a tall figure.

“Sorry,” Steve says automatically as he realizes he’s intruded upon someone. Then, he realizes it’s Bucky. “Oh,” he says, sounding surprised. “It’s you.”

Bucky bites back a sigh – he’d hoped to avoid this – and takes a drag on his cigarette.

“Who you hiding from?” Bucky asks, his words tainting the air with smoke.

“Tony,” Steve sighs. “There’s  another cake, and I’m pretty sure this one has a stripper inside.”

 Bucky snorts, “Sounds like Stark to me.”

“Who’re _you_ hiding from?” Steve asks. Bucky looks down at the cigarette in his metal hand, the ember glow diffusing across the silver like ripples on a pond. He wonders what Steve’ll think if he’s honest. After a minute, he tells himself he doesn’t care.

“No one, anymore,” Bucky answers. “Looks like he found me.”

Steve looks chagrined, so Bucky waves his hand dismissively.

“I forgot to bring you a present,” Bucky says, smiling a little. “Natasha neglected to tell me it was your birthday party.” He almost expects Steve to say something corny, like, ‘Aw, that’s alright, your company is a present,’ but Steve just smirks.

“Guess you’ll have to find some way to make it up to me,” Steve chuckles.

Before Bucky can reply, the door opens and Clint pokes his head out. Steve jumps behind the dumpster.

“Oh, hey, Barnes,” Clint says, glancing around the alleyway.

“Barton,” he nods, wondering if he should give Steve away. It’ll get him back his peace and quiet if he does.

“You seen Steve?” Clint asks. “We owe him a hundred spankings.” Bucky lets out a noise that might be a snort.

“Nope,” he says, flicking his cigarette.

“Dammit,” Clint says. “Well, if you see him, tell him that he can run, but he can’t hide.” Clint lets the door swing shut behind him.

Bucky waits until the count of ten before he turns and says, “He’s gone.” Steve steps out from behind his dumpster, shaking his head.

“Thirty-three,” Steve mutters. “I am thirty-three years old, not counting all the years I was frozen, and they insist on saying I’m one hundred this year.” Bucky laughs.

“How old does that make me?” he asks, knowing he _technically_ hit the big 1-0-0 last year. “Not counting all my time on ice.”

“Oh, forty, at least,” Steve smiles. “Don’t know why anyone insists I’m an old man when you’re around.”

“And lookin’ good for it, aren’t I?” Bucky says.

“Better than me,” Steve says. Bucky laughs and throws his cigarette butt onto the pavement, grinding it out with his shoe. “You took up smoking?” he asks curiously.

“Not really,” Bucky shrugs, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “It’s a good excuse to get away from the crowd, sometimes, if I need to. I don’t make a habit out of it.” He gives Steve a searching look, then asks, “Did I, uh, smoke? Before?”

“Huh?” Steve starts. “No, no – it bothered my asthma.”

“People keep telling me I’m going to get cancer,” Bucky says humorlessly. “Guess I should start telling them I’m already a hundred and one.”

“Hey, you know we qualify for one of those senior citizen discount cards,” Steve says.

“Really? You got one of them?” Bucky asks.

“Yeah, works like a charm when a guy who looks twenty-five takes it out and tries to get a free complimentary coffee at the doughnut shop,” Steve snorts.

“That’s when you pull out the baby blues and flirt your way through it all,” Bucky says.

Steve shakes his head, biting at his cheek trying to hold back his smile. Bucky doesn’t bother trying to hide his anymore. With a great sigh, Steve scuffs his boot against the asphalt and glances at the door.

“Guess I’ll have to go back in eventually,” he sighs. “Sharon keeps trying to get me to dance.”

“Tell you what,” Bucky says. “If you go back in, I’ll go back in, and I’ll dance with anyone who tries to ask you so you don’t have to.”

“Wow,” Steve says, holding the door open for him. “So selfless.”

“I know,” Bucky says cheekily. “But I’m not protecting you from birthday spankings.”

“Damn,” Steve shakes his head as he follows Bucky back into the club. “Should’ve brought my shield.”

*

That night, Bucky dreams that he wakes up in 1945, alive and well, with two arms and a head full of the wrong memories.

The war ends, he goes back to Brooklyn with Steve, and they move back into their old apartment, but all he can remember is a world seventy years in the future. He doesn’t know how to operate in the forties, and he panics. He can’t figure out how to work the stove or make coffee or do his own laundry, and he ends up knocking over everything in their apartment because he swears he hears a cell phone ringing and he _needs_ to find it and shut it off.

Steve walks into their apartment, looks around at the smashed lamps and torn open drawers, looks at Bucky, and asks him, _Why?_

Bucky tackles him to the ground and throws punches wildly, screaming, _I didn’t say I’d follow you_ here _._

He wakes up sweating, calling out for someone who isn’t there. Hands fisted in the sheets, Bucky closes his eyes and tells himself that he’s in 2018, in Brooklyn, in his apartment, and Steve is in Midtown in Avengers Tower.

When he checks his phone, he has three missed calls from Natasha. He ignores them and leaves his phone on his bedside table as he heads out of his apartment and into the night.

Bucky rides his motorcycle to Times Square, parks illegally, and sits on a bench, staring at the blinking screens until they blur at the edges of his vision.

*


	3. Chapter 2

What he remembers is this:

_Steve, young and stick thin, laughing in protest as James Buchanan Barnes buries him in the sand. Steve, standing on his front porch looking down at his shoes until a hand claps his shoulder and a vow falls heavy in the air._

_Shooting a man between the eyes, blood welling up underneath his hands as he tries to keep a life underneath them, the sickening crack of a neck snapping in his hands, the wind whipping him as he falls._

_“Bucky?” asks the man, and the name echoes inside his own head until a new set of words replaces them: “Wipe him.”_

*

Some days, he remembers his time as the Winter Soldier all too well.

Today is another day like that. He wakes up for the fifth time that night, blankets soaked in a cold sweat as he relives another kill.

Shaking, Bucky sits up. He takes a long drink from the glass of water on his nightstand, not caring that it’s lukewarm. He sets it back on the table, the glass making a tinkling noise from the tremors of his left hand.

Bucky takes a deep breath. Counts to ten. Exhales on another count.

He tries to dispel the nightmares with each exhale, but they catch in his throat and suffocate him, leaving him breathless. He won’t be leaving the apartment today.

Today. Today is Tuesday, he thinks. Training day. _Natasha._

Bucky rolls onto his side. He grabs his phone, sending her a text: _Won’t be able to make it today. Sry._

He sets the phone on his chest as he lies back against his pillows. The screen has burned itself into his vision, the numbers fading white-red against the inside of his eyelids. It’s past five o’clock. She usually jogs this time of morning.

His phone buzzes against his chest.

 _bad day? :(_ Natasha replies.

He considers lying. Telling her he just has errands to run. Even though she’ll see through it, she’ll accept it and respect his privacy.

 _Yeah. Sorry,_ he texts back by way of an answer.

 _don’t you dare apologize,_ she says. _was going to cancel anyways. got caught up in something, still in europe or I’d come over. you shouldn’t be alone._

 _Don’t worry about it,_ Bucky replies.

He is worrying about it, though – as much as he hates to admit it, he doesn’t like being alone on days like this, when he feels his programming snapping back into place, his movements falling into “acceptable” patterns of behavior. He hates days like these.

 _incoming in 10,_ Natasha texts him back a minute later, and then adds: _remember, you are allowed to say no. <3_

*

His doorbell starts ringing at 5:26 AM; at 5:28 AM, he hears the ringing change to knocking.

Bucky toes off his socks. He breathes quietly through his mouth as he pads on silent feet to the door, stopping to peer through the spyhole.

“Steve?” he says in surprise. He throws open the door.

Steve stands in the hallway outside his apartment, clutching a white cardboard box and still wearing his jogging windbreaker. He has a backpack slung over one shoulder.

Bucky holds his ground inside the door. He holds it half-shut with one hand, firmly planting himself between Steve and his apartment. He sees himself in Steve’s eyes: unwashed and unkempt, sweatpants almost falling from his hips, his sweaty t-shirt abandoned and his chest bare.

“Hey,” Steve says, his brow furrowed with concern. “Natasha texted me. I brought pastries.” Bucky looks at him and sighs.

“Come in,” Bucky says in resignation. He holds the door open. He turns away sharply and heads towards his bathroom. “I’m going to take a shower,” he calls over his shoulder. “Make yourself at home.”

Bucky’s shower is quick and clinical. He dries off quickly and throws on the first clothes he sees. He unlocks his bedroom door and heads towards the kitchen.

Steve has made a pot of coffee and set out some plates for the two of them. When he sees Bucky walk into the kitchen, he turns slowly to face him.

“Coffee?” he asks, and at Bucky’s nod, pours him a cup. “Cream? Sugar?”

“I don’t want any of that sweet shit, Rogers, you know that,” he says, trying to draw the corner of his mouth up. The words come out all wrong, though, gritty and harsh. Steve smiles for him, takes it all in stride.

“You can take your pick of any pastry you want,” Steve says, motioning towards the box. “Or, I make a mean scrambled egg,” he smiles.

As Bucky walks over to the kitchen table, it hits him, what Steve’s doing – he’s giving Bucky choices, making sure he remembers that he has the freedom to make them. It’s something he’d done at first when Bucky had been trying to shake off his programming, clinging desperately to what little sense of self he had.

“Hey, these are my favorites,” Bucky says, sitting down and pulling a pastry out of the box. Steve walks over to the table, making all of his moves predictable and easy for Bucky to track. He sits on the opposite end of Bucky’s tiny kitchen table.

“Good,” Steve says with a nod. Bucky looks at him from over the rim of his coffee cup. He frowns.

“Y’know,” he says, “sometimes I feel like you’ve got an advantage over me, knowing my favorites before I even do.”

“If you’d like to even out the playing field, I think one of those tween magazines made a list of my favorite things a few years back,” Steve replies with a sly smile. “Been getting recipes for apple cake in the mail ever since.”

Bucky doesn’t know what to say to that, so he doesn’t say anything at all. He eats his pastry and takes another, leaving enough for Steve to have half. Once Bucky finishes eating and drinking his coffee, he sits there silently, eyes glazing over as his mind wanders away.

His hands aren’t shaking anymore, so he focuses on his breathing, his heart rate. He counts in his head as he inhales, measuring his breath, and tries to match the same count as he exhales.

“Did you have any plans for today?” Steve asks, bringing him out of his mind.

“Not really,” Bucky says.

“I can leave, if you want,” Steve says, looking a little guilty. Bucky doesn’t understand why.

“It’s up to you,” Bucky says. He doesn’t know that he wants Steve here, but he doesn’t want him gone. He just doesn’t want to be alone. Not today.

“What do you and Natasha usually do?” Steve asks, eyes searching Bucky’s face for something.

“Makes me do yoga with her, sometimes,” he shrugs. “We watched an entire season of _Doctor Who_ once. One time she made us bake a bunch of cookies.”

He isn’t going to talk about the worst days, when he jumped at the slightest movements and Natasha took him into her arms, brushed her hands though his hair, and let him curl up with his head in her lap, focusing on just _breathing_ for now.

“What do you want to do?” Steve asks.

Bucky pulls in a deep breath, trapping the air inside of him, like he can hold down the bubbling anxiety in his chest.

“I don’t know,” he says in a small voice. “I just. Don’t want to sleep. Don’t want to go out. Probably shouldn’t go out.”

“Okay,” Steve says with understanding. “I have an idea.”

He stands up, taking their plates over to the sink, and stops at his backpack. Bucky watches as he pulls out a deck of cards.

“You know how to play anything?” Steve asks, sitting back down. He starts to shuffle the cards, Bucky’s eyes following the motion of his hands as he takes the Jokers out of the deck and sets them aside.

“Clint taught me how to play poker, euchre, and rummy,” Bucky says.

“I hope you made him regret that decision,” Steve smiles.

“Damn straight.”

 Steve deals their hands with his smile still ghosting on his face.

*

Natasha makes up for their missed date that weekend when she invites Bucky over to Avengers Tower for a training session, promising him that it’s mostly empty this weekend due to some charity event that Steve and Tony are hosting.

She also makes up for lost time by kicking his ass repeatedly, teasing him that he’s gotten out of shape in the past week. From the corner of the gym, Clint eggs him on out of solidarity (he’d gotten his butt kicked by Natasha twenty minutes ago).

“You know,” she says, dipping underneath a kick, “if you didn’t hold back, you’d beat me for once.”

“If I didn’t hold back, I’d accidentally kill you,” Bucky grunted, twisting and following up his first kick with another.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Natasha says in a teasing tone, “I don’t hold back _that_ much, and you’ve remained relatively intact so far.”

“So far,” Bucky sighs as a punch connects with his ribs, hurting but not bruising or cracking. “Come on, Nat, do you _really_ want me to use the arm?”

She gives him a look that says _Yes, yes, I really fucking would_ , and then grabs his metal arm, using it to throw him off his feet. Bucky catches himself and spins aside before Natasha can tackle him to the mat and do that thing with her thighs again.

“Maybe it’s because you two are so perfectly matched,” Clint says from the corner, his mouth half full with popcorn. Bucky rolls his eyes as he somersaults around Natasha.

“No,” Natasha replies, cutting Bucky off and pinning his right hand down. “ _Cap’s_ a perfect match for him,” she says in an authoritative manner. Clint lets out a snort.

“Uh,” Bucky says, choosing to ignore her choice of phrasing, “last time I checked, Cap wasn’t kicking my ass every Tuesday.” He raises his metal arm and tries to throw her off, but she holds her ground, not willing to let him throw her gently, trying to force him into using his full strength. Bucky grunts, changing tactics and trying to wrestle his other arm from her grip.

Clint calls out, “If you keep holding back like that, she’s going to do the thing with – yeah. There it is. The thing with her thighs.”

Natasha wraps her thighs around Bucky’s neck until he sees stars and mutters, “Uncle, uncle, uncle, fuck.”

Natasha rolls off him and onto her side, posing with her chin resting in her hand.

“Jesus, fuck,” Bucky swears, staring up at the ceiling as he gasps for breath.

“Usually, men don’t complain when I do that,” Natasha says slyly, throwing her hair over her shoulder.

“Are we the exception?” Clint asks. He walks over to reward her with her water bottle and a kernel of popcorn.

“Please don’t group me with you, Barton,” Bucky says, still out of breath. Clint laughs at him, so Bucky reaches over and grabs Clint’s ankle, sweeping his feet out from under him. Clint lands with a yelp.

“The mat’s fair game,” Natasha smirks when Clint scowls at Bucky. Somehow, she’s managed to snag his bag of popcorn before it could spill across the mat. She tosses a kernel into her mouth. “Hey, you should fight Clint for a change.”

“Uh, no, you should n—aaah!” Clint yells as Bucky pulls him closer by the ankle, pulling one of his rubber practice knives from his belt. With a second’s consideration, he throws it to Clint. Clint catches the knife and, smirking, dives towards Bucky.

Fighting Hawkeye is not like fighting the Black Widow. He rarely spars with Clint, if ever – the metal arm scares off pretty much everyone except Natasha and sometimes T’Challa – and Clint still hasn’t forgiven him for outshooting him on the range. (Once. _Once._ He’d never admit it to Barton, but Hawkeye is called the World’s Greatest Marksman for a reason.)

Clint’s expertise might be in sharpshooting, but he’s a challenge to Natasha at hand-to-hand, and he can hold his own against the Winter Soldier. As they spar, he lands two jabs with his knife until Bucky catches it in midair, turning the rubber blade on Clint and pressing it to his throat.

Behind his back, Bucky hears the door open and someone say, “Hey, Natasha, Jan and I are back and we were wondering – Oh.”

Bucky drops the rubber knife and turns, leaving Clint to stumble in response to the quick shift of balance.

“Hey, Bucky,” Steve says, nodding at him. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting his ass kicked by me,” Natasha says with a smile, getting to her feet. She shoves the popcorn bag at Clint’s chest. “What did you want?”

“We were going to go out to get some food,” Steve says, still looking at Bucky. “Carol says she’s found the best hot dog cart in the city. Wanna come?” Natasha briefly follows Steve’s stare to Bucky. Feeling conspicuous, he heads to the edge of the mat, where he grabs his water bottle and takes a long drink, ignoring the gaze burning into the back of his neck.

“Not today, I’ve got some stuff to do,” Natasha says apologetically.

“Do you want to come, Bucky?” Steve asks. It takes Bucky a moment to realize that, _yes,_ Steve is asking _him_ , and he freezes and turns around, water bottle still hanging from his lips.

“Um,” he says, “I’m still training for the rest of today. Sorry.” The plastic of the water bottle crackles in his grip, filling the awkward silence when Steve meets his eyes, nodding once.

“Alright. Have fun,” Steve says, turning and leaving the gym.

“What am I?” Clint mutters, “Chop liver?”

“What the hell was that?” Natasha says, rounding on Bucky, not quite as aggressive as much as she is enthusiastically nosy.

“I thought we were training for the rest of today?” Bucky asks, confused. Was he supposed to take the invitation? Was it a test?

“Don’t avoid the subject,” Natasha says, crossing her arms. Bucky’s genuinely lost, though. _What did I do now?_ he wonders.

“Yeah, that’s the first time I’ve seen you and Rogers act civil towards each other since, like, he brought you home to Avengers Tower and you tried to kill him every other day,” Clint says, glancing from Natasha to Bucky.

“That was only _three times_ ,” Bucky protests, hoping to derail them with their own characteristic dark humor. He ignores the sinking feeling in his gut as he realizes what they’re getting at.

“Yeah, but you haven’t exactly been on speaking terms since you moved out,” Clint says with a shrug. He opens his bag of popcorn and starts snacking again, oblivious to the stony glare Bucky sends his way. “I mean, you move out, he practically cries himself to sleep every night—“

“ _Clint_ ,” Natasha protests.

“Fine,” Clint says. “You move out, start avoiding him, stop showing up to Avengers shit, he cries himself to sleep _every other Thursday_ and gets this look on his face every time someone mentions you. I mean, worst breakup of all time, right?”

“What Clint is trying to say,” Natasha says with an exasperated sigh, “is that you two haven’t exactly been bosom buddies for the past few years.” (Behind her back, Clint mouths ‘Bosom Buddies’ with air quotes and promptly receives a kick in the shins. Natasha didn’t even need to turn around.) “And that it’s nice to see that you’re on good terms again.”

“I don’t think it was that we were on bad terms,” Bucky growls, turning away with a bitter look in his eyes and grabbing for his gym bag, “as much as it was that he never seemed to want to look me in the eye and hold a conversation set in the twenty-first century. Or maybe it was everyone sticking their noses into other people’s business.”

He catches Clint shrug at Natasha as if to go, ‘What did I say?’ Natasha gives Bucky a long, searching look, frustration apparent in her posture.

Without looking back again, Bucky heads for the showers.

*

When he’s done in the locker room (Thor is the only other occupant, thankfully), he finds Natasha waiting for him, leaning against the wall with crossed arms.

“Walk with me,” she says as he opens his mouth. He knows by the slant of her lips and the way her nails tap against her bicep to follow her. She leads him up to her suite, away from prying eyes and ears.

There’s an electric kettle boiling on the counter of her kitchenette. He watches as she turns it off and pours the water into two waiting cups of tea. Natasha hands him one of the mugs. She points at the table with a single finger.

“Sit,” she says pointedly. Bucky doesn’t argue.

She hasn’t given him sugar, so he blows on the tea before sipping it. It’s hot, and he nearly burns his tongue before he decides to wait for it to cool. Natasha drinks it while scalding. She remains silent.

“I’m sorry,” he says, because he’s learned that when people treat him like this, they’re usually angry at him for something he’s said. “I shouldn’t have jumped down your throats like that.”

“So, you’ve at least realized what you did wrong,” she nods. “That’s good. I have a little bit more patience for assholes who realize that they _are_ assholes.”

“Like Clint,” he says, against his better judgment.

“Like Clint,” Natasha repeats. “Who is sorry.” Bucky raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah,” he sighs, shrugging. “It’s Clint. It’s fine.”

“It isn’t fine,” Natasha says. Her voice doesn’t sound angry anymore, just…restrained, in a way he can’t place. He listens closer, trying to measure the emotions she’s balancing in this conversation. “You’re angry,” she says.

“So’s the Hulk, what do you want me to do about it?” he replies, trying for a laugh. Natasha sighs at his blatant attempt to deflect. She sits across from him, cupping her tea in her hands.

“You’re opaque,” she says. He reads some kind of frustration in her voice – disappointment?

Bucky thinks about cracking a joke about how _I sure hope I am_ , but decides better of it. He takes a sip of his hot tea instead. The herbs taste strange, sweet like honey, flowery and pleasant, with a hint of mint. It isn’t half bad.

“It’s Steve, isn’t it?” she asks him. “Is it because I sent him over the other day? Did he try to talk about–?“

“It’s not Steve,” he protests, far too quickly. She raises an eyebrow. “Alright, it _is_ Steve,” Bucky says. “But it isn’t about the other day. He didn’t talk about the past at all, he just – we played rummy. I kicked his ass. Nothing to report.”

Natasha’s posture shifts then, her shoulders softening as she leans back in her chair, and he curses his choice of words. He’s not framing this as though he reports to her, he didn’t mean – “Shit,” he says, running a hand through his long hair. It’s still damp from his shower.

“Bucky,” Natasha says gently. “You don’t have to tell me this if you don’t want to. I’m sorry for putting you in this position. Sometimes I forget that I don’t have to interrogate my friends.”

Bucky takes in a shaking breath, slow and deep. “It’s not you,” he says. “It’s me. It’s – it’s Rogers. He’s gotten into my goddamn head again, like he always does.”

“What do you mean?” she asks, careful to sound curious but not demanding. Bucky swallows a half-formed laugh.

“It’s like you said,” Bucky shrugs, looking down at his mug. He cups it with his right hand, letting the still-searing warmth sink into his skin. “Steve sticks in your head. The things he says, does…he’s so earnest, so determined in every action, he means it all. But you can’t help but wonder _what_ he means, and why, and what he sees in you.”

“So you _do_ think he sees something worthwhile in you?” Natasha hums, a question he knows he doesn’t have to answer.

“Somehow, he does,” Bucky says. “I don’t get it. One minute, it’s about recovering my memories, about how much he misses his Bucky, how I’m not him – the next, it’s like he’s almost forgotten I used to be anyone else. It’s like _he’s_ the one who’s forgotten.”

“You realize that practically three years have passed since you two were on regular speaking terms,” Natasha reminds him. “You lived with him for six months, and then you moved out to make your own life. Both of you have had time to re—reevaluate.” He knows she was going to say ‘reboot’ before she decided to choose a word that was less robotic in origin. Bucky smiles.

“You’ve been hanging out with Stark too much,” he teases.

She shrugs guiltily, taking a sip of her tea.

“I don’t think it’s just the time difference,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “It’s like, he’s different from when I first met him, somehow.” He shrugs and glances up at Natasha. “Like he’s changed.”

Natasha sighs and says, “Have you ever thought, maybe you’re the one who’s changed?”

 “What?” he asks, blinking in confusion.

“You felt like Steve was always trying to make you be someone you weren’t,” she says, running her finger clockwise along the rim of her mug. “When maybe you felt like you _wanted_ to be someone you weren’t.” He watches her finger change direction, running counterclockwise. Bucky lays a hand on it, stopping her motion. The steam rises from the hot tea in the cup and diffuses against their skin, trapped by their hands.

“What do you mean?” he asks, looking up from her hand and into her dark eyes.

“I mean, maybe you’re done trying to live up to the memory of someone else. Maybe you’re done trying to be James Barnes, and ready to be Bucky.”

“And who is that, exactly?” he asks, lifting his hand from hers to cross his arms. Natasha shrugs.

“Whoever you want to be.”

He quiets. Natasha lets him drink the rest of his tea in peace, letting the companionable silence wash over them both. It’s easier than being alone with his thoughts.

He thinks about it, about how he’d tried so hard to be the Bucky that Steve longed for. They’d scanned his brain, studied his biology, tried therapies and good old-fashioned patience. (Clint had, smirking, suggested cognitive recalibration – until Bucky raised his eyebrows and dared him to try.)

Steve had listened to Sam and Tony and Bruce tell him, again and again, that these things took time, that Bucky might never be the man he remembered.

Bucky had listened to Clint’s wisecracks that didn’t know quite where the line was, to the silences that betrayed Sam’s aching pity, and the way Steve’s breathing wavered at night, uneven and shaking from inside his room.

Natasha had come later, when he felt as though he’d lost all sense of purpose, and reminded him of something. Gave him something to prove.

“Thank you,” he says quietly, looking up and meeting her eyes.

“Yeah,” she says. “You’re welcome.”

Reaching forward, Natasha takes his empty mug and hers and heads over to the sink.

“I actually have a proposition for you,” she says, voice light as she rinses out the cups. “A mission, really.”

“Yeah?” he asks.

“You don’t _have_ to say yes,” Natasha reminds him. “In fact, I’d encourage you not to take me up on it.”

“That’s not really going to work to dissuade me,” he smirks. Natasha opens the dishwasher and sets the cups inside.

“Didn’t think so. But, it’s not really an easy thing. You see,” she says, turning around and leaning back against the counter, “it’s about my past.”

*

The past is a tricky thing, at least in Bucky’s mind. His memories of most of his life – the years he’s been awake, at least – don’t stick. It’s like sitting in the sand at a beach, watching one wave uncover a shell and the next take it away.

The only memories he has that he can rely on are no older than four years old, the first one he _knows_ happened framed by a DC street, a shocked face, a mouth, and a name.

Natasha’s memories are different, she says, and he listens. 

She remembers growing up, living with her parents, dancing the ballet, the name of the street she grew up on, her childhood best friend’s name. These are facts of life that Bucky can rattle off from his own past. But they are not facts for Natasha.

She was never a ballerina. Her parents died when she was four, and she had no childhood friends – she was never a _child,_ not really, not in a way that could be defined as childhood. Those memories are not hers, but a twisted joke, a lie. She was trained to be the perfect spy – memories and all.

Bucky nearly breaks another mug listening to her full story, and he certainly leaves a hand-shaped dent in one of her chairs.

He thinks of HYDRA, from the Russian underground facility that found him to the Red Room. He wishes he could take the ‘Fist of HYDRA’ and use it to take them all down.

*

Bucky doesn’t take her up on it, in the end.

He mulls over it for a few days, thinking: Europe. Siberia. Russia.

He knows he’ll have to go back eventually – he’s travelled, of course, on Avengers work – but never in a personal capacity. He has yet to seek out his fellow ghosts.

Bucky seeks out something else instead, and finds himself standing at the door to Steve’s apartment in Avengers Tower. He steels himself before he knocks.

Steve opens the door a few moments later with a bewildered expression on his face, like he’s just looked through the peephole and still doesn’t seem to believe his eyes.

“Hey,” Bucky says weakly, shoving his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Steve says, stepping aside to let Bucky in. “What’s up?”

“Wanted to ask you something,” Bucky says, glancing around the apartment. It’s changed some since Bucky lived there; there’s different art hanging on the walls, he has a new couch, and the furniture has been rearranged. Bucky realizes that he hasn’t been inside it since the day he moved out and feels disoriented. Quickly, he turns to face Steve, looking at him instead of the apartment.

“Um,” Steve hums, before his brain seems to catch up. “Alright. You want anything to, uh, drink?”

“No, I’m good,” Bucky says, “don’t have an aneurism, it’s just about Natasha.”

“Oh,” Steve says. As though he didn’t hear Bucky’s protest, he heads towards his kitchenette, turning on his fancy cappuccino maker as he goes. “So, how are you and Natasha?”

Bucky shrugs. “She’s fine, I guess,” he says. “She wants to go to Europe and hunt down some of the men who ran the Red Room facility that ma – that trained her.”

“She’s talked about that before,” Steve says with a nod, pulling two cups out of the cupboard. “Russia. She thinks HYDRA was involved, behind the KGB’s back. You going with her?”

“I don’t know yet,” Bucky shrugs.

“You should, if you want to,” Steve says. He’s still turned away from Bucky, looking at the cappuccino maker. “She has an apartment in Paris. You two could stop there, have some time away.”

“Paris? Nah,” Bucky laughs. “Isn’t that where they have that big art museum? Have you seen that yet?”

“Not yet,” Steve says distractedly.

“You’d like it more than me, then,” Bucky says.

“But, if Natasha was there, you two could go,” Steve says, waving one of the empty cups around. “Or, there’s the Eiffel Tower, that’s romantic, you could take her to – y’know, I haven’t actually seen the city since it was liberated, I wonder if –“

“Steve,” Bucky says, trying to stop him. “Steve. I’m not asking you for dating advice. I’m not – Natasha and I aren’t – she and I –“

“Oh, thank god,” Steve sighs in relief. Instantly, he looks up apologetically, and says, “Not that that’s good. It’s just, good that you aren’t coming to me for dating advice.”

“Sorry, but you’re the last person I’d come to for help with the ladies,” Bucky snorts. “It just might be the only thing you don’t have me beat at.”

“I figured,” Steve laughs. “So, what are you asking?”

“She’s going on her…’revenge trip’ isn’t the name for it, but it’s the only thing I’ve got,” Bucky sighs. “And I don’t know if I should go with her.”

Steve presses his lips together and thinks for a moment, staring at the coffee cups in front of him.

“The way I see it, it’s about closure for Natasha,” he says. “She needs to come to terms with what happened to her; she thinks you might be able to get closure out of it as well. Maybe, if you’re getting ‘revenge’ out of that, then you should let her do this on her own. Until you’re ready.”

“This coming from a leader of the ‘Avengers,’” Bucky says, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s not the same thing, Buck,” Steve sighs, rubbing his forehead. “We protect this world, and we avenge the fallen. We don’t go chasing after people to do to them what was done to us. We show mercy, and that’s our strength.”

“Huh,” Bucky says, “has anyone ever told you you think too much, Steve?”

“All the time,” Steve smiles. “But, maybe I’m just telling you not to go because I’m selfish.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because I’d like to see you stay in New York,” he smirks, “seeing as you still owe me a birthday present.”

*

He and Clint see Natasha off in the Avengers Tower garage, watching as she loads a few bags into her car, a large, floppy sunhat shielding her eyes.

“Call me if you need anything,” she whispers into Bucky’s ear, pressing a card into his pocket that probably has the number of her burner written on it. She says something to Clint that he can’t quite hear.

“Tasha,” Clint says as she turns to get into her car. “We’re your backup, remember? Don’t hesitate to make a call.”

“And you don’t forget to feed your dog,” she shoots back, punching him lightly in the arm. She kisses him on the cheek and turns to Bucky, kissing his cheek as well.

“Aw, shucks, I’m blushing,” Bucky laughs. Natasha gives him the finger and slams the car door shut behind her.

He might not be going with her, but she knows he’ll come in a heartbeat if he calls.

Natasha pulls the car around in the garage to leave. Before she leaves, she lowers the window, catches Bucky’s eye, and says with a smile, “Look after Rogers for me, will you?”

And then she’s gone.


	4. Chapter 3

What he remembers is this:

_There are ten dead HYDRA agents on the floor and he’s out the door, out in the city streets, sunlight in his eyes and wind in his hair and he smells trash and blood and sweat and piss and he’s warm, he’s so warm._

_He steals a pair of shoes and a jacket to get himself off the radar. He takes money from open purses, a pair of scissors from a convenience store. He cuts his hair in an alleyway, gets a hotel room, and takes a long, hot shower._

_The newspaper he bought at the gas station says 1994. He laughs, because they’ve printed it wrong, mixed up the last two letters._

_He’s still laughing when his handlers come to retrieve him. He doesn’t even fight them this time._

*                                                                       

With Natasha gone, Bucky’s lost the majority of his social plans. He’s almost relieved – at least until he discovers that Clint is under strict orders from Natasha to make sure he keeps training. If they’re around, he spars with T’Challa or Rhodey, and on one memorable occasion, Stark (who Steve has been training, it seems).

He goes out on runs late at night, when there aren’t as many people out, or early in the morning before even the earliest of runners. He never takes the same route twice.

Bucky’s running through Central Park one morning when a shout stops him.

“Hey!” Sam Wilson says, jogging behind him, “Barnes!” Bucky falls back, cursing his luck. Wilson is wearing sweats and running shoes, carrying a water bottle. He’s running, too.

“Hey, Wilson,” he says as Sam comes up beside him.

“Yeah, hi,” he says quickly, “Wanna prank Rogers?”

Bucky stops running and raises an eyebrow, crossing his arms. “What did you have in mind?” he asks.

“He’s gonna come around that corner in a minute, trying to lap me,” Sam says, pointing. “I need you to like, hide behind a tree or something, run up behind him, and yell ‘On your left’ in his ear as you pass him.”

Bucky snorts. “He’s gonna take a swing at me,” he says, glancing at the corner that Steve’s approaching.

“Which is why I’m asking _you_ to do this,” Sam laughs. “You can duck.”

“Alright,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “Head off around that corner like you’re still going and stop behind the tree at the end. That should give you a good view of the show.”

Laughing to himself, Wilson heads down the sidewalk, following Bucky’s instructions.

Bucky waits behind a tree, still and silent as ever. He waits until he sees Rogers out of his periphery, and ducks out from behind the tree, matching his pace easily. Rogers heads towards the corner.

Bucky runs up behind him and taps his right shoulder, whispering “On your left, Rogers,” in his other ear as he passes him.

To his surprise, Steve doesn’t try to punch him out of reflex. He jumps half a mile and yells, “GODDAMNIT, WILSON,” just as Sam emerges from behind his tree, laughing his head off.

“Hi-five, dude,” Sam says to Bucky, hitting the metal hand a little too hard and shaking his hand at the impact. “We got you, Rogers, we got you good,” he laughs.

“I can’t believe you,” Steve groans in Bucky’s direction, panting from exertion. “You _traitor._ ” Bucky laughs.

“He laps me every goddamn day, and makes a show out of it,” Sam says to Bucky, shaking his head.

“Does he? What a shame,” Bucky says.

“He’s worse than Stark, I swear,” Sam sighs.

“Hey, Wilson, respect your elders,” Steve says, lifting his water bottle to his mouth to take a drink. “Although, it was funnier when Quicksilver did it.”

“Why’s that?” Bucky asks, crossing his arms.

“He got away with it,” Steve says, then sprays Bucky with his water bottle.

“Oh, fuck you!” Bucky yells, stumbling away.

“Yeah, you better run,” Steve says, and Bucky sprints off the path and into the grass, Steve chasing him and slopping water at his ankles.

He can hear Sam laughing in the background as Steve finally catches up with him, hooking a foot around his ankle so that he trips to the ground. Bucky goes down laughing, rolling onto his back. Steve tackles him and straddles him, holding him down gently. Bucky could squirm away or throw him off if he really tried.

Steve takes the lid off his water bottle and holds it up, tilting his head to the side as he looks down at Bucky.

“No, you don’t,” Bucky protests. He hears Sam laughing in the background, from a safe distance away. “Seriously, Steve, don’t you _dare_ —“

“Oh, I dare,” Steve says, slowly tipping the water bottle and letting the water pour on Bucky’s face. The cold water feels good against his sweaty skin, but so does Steve over him. He tries not to think about that.

“Fuck,” Bucky says when the water bottle is empty. He blinks the water out of his eyes and looks up at Steve. “Is that all you got?” he asks.

“Hey, Barnes,” Sam says, “catch.”

Bucky sees the water bottle out of the corner of his eye and raises a hand to catch it, but Steve intercepts the pass. Still straddling Bucky, he twists off the lid and raises it again. He winks at Bucky.

Steve pours the entire bottle of water over himself.

“ _Are you fucking kidding me,”_ Bucky mutters to himself as the water soaks Steve’s hair and runs down his shirt, so the white fabric clings to his perfect super-soldier abs.

“Oh, that feels good,” Steve smirks after a moment, a glint in his eye.

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky hears Sam say. “Look at our blonde American Mr. Darcy.”

Laughing, Steve stands up to free Bucky and tosses the empty water bottle back to Sam. Sam winces before he catches it. “What?” Steve says, holding out his arms. “Afraid of getting a little wet,  Wilson?”

Bucky laughs as Steve chases Sam across the grass. When Steve finally catches Sam, he wraps him in a hug, soaking the front of Sam’s sweatshirt.

“I hate both of you,” Sam complains as they walk out of the park together. “You one-hundred-year-old children.”

*

_You busy tonight?_ Bucky texts Steve on a Wednesday morning, as soon as he’s had enough coffee to communicate.

_No. Why? Is something wrong?_ Steve replies quickly.

_No,_ Bucky types back. _Still owe you a birthday present. Wanna see a movie?_

Barely a moment passes before Steve texts him back: _Sure._

Bucky definitely _doesn’t_ spend the rest of the day worrying about what to wear, or what movie they should see, or how crowded the theater will be. He’s chosen Wednesday night specifically because it won’t be too crowded, and he knows a less popular theater that’s out of the way, an older one that’s going out of business.

_It’ll be fine_ , he tells himself.

Waiting outside Steve’s door to pick him up (not like a date, definitely not like a date), Bucky wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans. He’d run into Wanda and Carol on his way up, and they’d made it their personal goal to try to interrogate him on why he was wearing ‘Real People Clothes’ and had ‘actually brushed his hair for once.’ (To her credit, Wanda had elbowed Carol and made her apologize.)

Now, standing in the hallway waiting for Steve to answer the knock at his door, Bucky feels like this was the worst idea ever. He can hear someone moving around inside, and the muffled sounds of a conversation – Stark, maybe? His heart leaps into his mouth.

But then, Steve steps out of his door wearing a button-down and looking somewhat hassled, and smiles wryly at Bucky.

“Sorry,” he says, shutting the door behind him. “Video call with Tony.”

“It’s fine,” Bucky says offhandedly. “What does he want?”

Steve groans, running a hand over his face. “You don’t wanna know,” he sighs.

“You’re right, I probably don’t,” Bucky laughs.

 “So, what movie are we seeing?” Steve asks, shoving his hands into his pockets as they board the elevator.

“That Disney one they’re showing,” Bucky says, “I know you like the animation, and no one else would’ve thought to ask you.” It’s also safer than a movie that will likely have explosions and gunfire, but Bucky leaves that unsaid.

“Oh, I love those,” Steve grins. “You know, when they first came out with Snow White—“

“I know, I know, you almost hid and stayed to see it again, but you felt bad for not paying for another ticket,” Bucky smiles. “You told me.”

Steve smiles again, and Bucky catches him smiling nearly every time he glances over at him on the ride over. The smile doesn’t even waver as they step up to the ticket booth and the tickets cost well over ten dollars apiece (Steve hates modern prices).

“Hey! I thought I was paying,” Bucky protests as Steve asks for two tickets and hands over his credit card. “Birthday present, remember?”

“Please,” Steve says, “if you wanted just to pay for my ticket, you’d have bought me a gift card. It’s the principle of the thing.”

Bucky wants to protest that he didn’t even know they _had_ gift cards for the movies, but he keeps his mouth shut. The night _isn’t_ turning out to be a disaster, so that’s something.

At least until halfway through the movie, when a loud cell phone goes off from the seats in front of them. A man who’s there with his son picks his phone out of his pocket, the screen glaring into Bucky’s vision in the dark theater.

 “Hello?” the man says into his phone, not quietly. “What do you want me to do about it, Ben? I’m off the clock. I said I’m off the –“

“Excuse me,” Steve whispers, leaning over the seat in front of him to speak to the man. “Can you take that out into the hall, please?”

“—No, he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing. Call that kid, the geek, he’s —“

“Excuse me,” Steve says, his voice a little louder. “Can you please be quiet?”

“How about _you_ be quiet?” the man snaps back, pulling the phone away from his mouth to speak over the movie. “Mind your own fucking business.”

Bucky’s heart sinks. _Oh, no._

“I think you need to take _your_ business outside,” Steve says, voice dangerously low.

“I don’t know about you,” the guy starts, and Bucky holds his breath.

“Here we go,” he mutters.

*

“I get the feeling that you’ve been kicked out of a lot of movie theaters in your lifetime,” Bucky says, heading down the sidewalk beside Steve. They’ve decided dinner at a diner down the block will have to do in the absence of a movie.

“Don’t pretend to remember the embarrassing facts of my life,” Steve groans. “Please.” Bucky laughs, to his own surprise.

“I bet you looked like a huge nerd when you were a kid,” Bucky says with a smug grin. “You were a dweeb, definitely.”

“Just because I was skinny—“ Steve starts.

“You probably called each of your teachers ‘mom’ at least once,” Bucky decides. “Probably ran the wrong way ‘round the bases when you first played baseball.”

“Hey!” Steve protests, elbowing Bucky. “I’ll have you know, I was ace at baseball. Couldn’t run so fast, but I knew the game better than anyone.”

“So you _did_ call Mrs. What's-Her-Face ‘mom’ in front of all the other kids,” Bucky says smugly. “I knew it. Did she have to call the fire department to unstick your tongue the winter you licked the flagpole on a dare?”

“I wasn’t stupid enough to do _that_ ,” Steve protests.

“And – and I bet you had those little footie pajamas. What a shame there aren’t any surviving pictures of you as a kid.” Bucky doesn’t even bother biting back his laugh.

“Okay,” Steve says, “ _now_ you’re just stealing from _A Christmas Story._ ”

Bucky raises his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay,” he says.

“This game isn’t fair, anyways,” Steve says, “how am I supposed to embarrass you with dumb childhood stories?”

“I guess there’s one benefit to the amnesia,” Bucky says smugly. “No embarrassing memories.”

A mischievous grin slowly grows on Steve’s face. He says, “What about the time when you walked in on Tony and—“

“No,” Bucky groans, “oh my god, there was _screaming,_ I thought—“

“Didn’t he ask you to—?“ Steve lets out a peal of laughter at the face Bucky makes.

“’Either get out or get in the bed,’” Bucky repeats, running a hand in front of his face. “God, _Stark_.”

“Should’ve called his bluff,” Steve says. Bucky huffs.

“You’ve got some weird friends. Where’d you find this crew, anyways?” Bucky asks, a little seriously.

“I didn’t find them,” Steve says, shrugging. “They found me.” He looks down at his shoes, scuffing them against the sidewalk.

The street is lit only by lamps and the neon lights of the storefronts they pass. They’re both quiet for a moment, allowing the sounds of traffic, barking dogs, and distant yells to fade through into their conversation. Bucky likes the sounds; they’re comforting, in an inexplicable way. He wonders if it’s a reflex, to like this city so much. He swallows, suddenly regretting steering them away from jokes and banter.

“You’re a sap, Rogers, anyone ever told you that?” Bucky says, nudging Steve with an elbow in hopes of shaking him out of his melancholy reverie.

“It’s been said,” Steve says, glancing up at Bucky through his lashes.

Steve has an inexplicable smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Bucky has the sudden urge to lean over and kiss him.

Panic rises like lava inside his chest, and Bucky looks away from Steve.

“Hey, we’re here,” Steve says, stopping outside the diner and holding the door open. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says absently as he enters the diner. “Never better.”

*

Bucky lays in bed and stares at his dark ceiling until the early hours of the morning. He clutches the sheets to his chest and breathes slowly, counting in his mind to even out his inhales and exhales. He feels like there’s a monster trapped inside him, scratching at his insides with its claws, but he knows it’s just anxiety. He’s convinced himself that, since he hasn’t had a full-blown panic attack yet, he doesn’t _have_ to call Natasha.

Bucky likes to think he’s the second leading expert on James Buchanan Barnes. He’s read every book, journal, article, and classified file. He knows all of the facts of his life, start to finish, thousands of empty facts without memories to back them.

But he doesn’t know who “Bucky” was – who _he_ was – then. He doesn’t know  what that man thought while lying in bed the night before he was shipped off, or while he was hanging off a train, clinging for dear life. He has no idea what he was _like._

Steve knows everything, so it’s a simple calculation – Steve would _know_ if James Buchanan Barnes had been in love with him before, wouldn’t he? How would he have missed it? How would he rationalize hiding that from Bucky now?

Bucky wonders if this is it, if his memories are finally returning to him. He bites back a choking dry sob at the thought, and nearly rips the sheets in his hand in his grip. He doesn’t want to change – terribly, selfishly, he wants to remain the man he is now, with what few memories he has. He’s fought _so much_ for just this small piece of identity, but it’s all his. He’s become so much more than he once was.

Bucky takes a deep, shaking breath, and screws his eyes shut. He doesn’t want to remember his past. Those memories carry more than history, more than his life. They contain happiness he’s never known.

How much worse would this life be, if he could remember a life that was better?

*

He wears his long, dark hair in front of his face and takes a bus out to DC. He could take a car, or even get someone to fly him, but he prefers the solitude. Bucky knows he looks like what people think drug addicts and serial killers look like, so he mostly gets left alone. He doesn’t worry about being recognized.

Bucky tries not to look too hard at the DC city streets they cross, and takes a taxi to the National Mall when he could walk. He ignores the rising fear at the sight of the security guards, and heads up the steps to the Air and Space Museum.

The Smithsonian looks almost exactly as he remembers it, except for one thing: The Captain America exhibit is gone.

It’s replaced with a Captain _Marvel_ exhibit (which seems more appropriate, honestly, Carol is Air Force and has _actually been to space_ ). The walls are repainted, the displays showing pictures of Carol Danvers, her mentor Helen Cobb, and even a small plane that has been lent out to the museum. A good portion of the exhibit covers the Banshee Squadron, the WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots), and other women’s military history.

“Um,” Bucky says to a security guard, an old man with a gray moustache. “There was a Captain America exhibit here a few years ago. What happened to it?”

“Oh!” the man says, “They actually moved it out a few months back. It’s out on loan to another museum.”

“Another museum?” Bucky asks, swallowing.

“Yeah,” says the guard wistfully. “Such a nice boy, that Captain America.” Bucky isn’t even surprised at the comment.

“Thanks,” Bucky says in a stilted tone, turning to leave. He walks right down steps and keeps walking through the National Mall, resisting the urge to leave a fist-shaped hole in the Washington Monument when he passes it later.

*

The museum that currently houses the exhibit is in Cleveland, a good twelve hour’s drive from DC. Bucky rents a car with cash and a fake ID, and drives for six hours straight before he realizes he’s gone still and silent – he’s reverting back into mission mode.

Bucky stops at a rest stop and turns off the car, practicing his breathing. The air is hot and stuffy inside the car, but he’s afraid to put down the window. He goes over a mental run-through of his physical status. He can’t feel his hunger or thirst unless he consciously checks.

He reaches into the glove box and pulls out his cell phone, clicking the battery in. He dials.

“Rogers speaking,” Steve answers. Bucky sighs in relief.

“Bucky?” comes Steve’s voice, a little filtered and crackly through the crappy phone’s speaker. “Is that you?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. His rough throat betrays him. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“What are you doing on a burner phone? Is everything okay? Where are you?” Steve asks.

“Jeez,” Bucky laughs with effort, “don’t be such a worrywart, Rogers, I’m fine. I’m on a trip.”

“A trip,” Steve repeats, somewhat skeptically. More gently, he adds, “Want me to come pick you up?”

“No, I’m fine,” Bucky says. Steve knows he’s lying.

“What are you up to, then?” Steve asks, a little more casually, as though he’s trying to suppress his worry.

“There’s some stuff I need to do, on my own,” Bucky answers, knowing he’s being cagey and shifty as hell.

“Alright,” Steve says.

“Alright,” Bucky echoes him.

That’s all either of them say for a long moment, long enough that Bucky wonders if the call’s been dropped.

“Steve,” Bucky says in a voice that shakes, “tell me what you’ve been up to, maybe. Haven’t seen you in a week.”

“Nothing, really,” Steve says, hesitating as he thinks. “Sam and I went running in the mornings, as usual. We missed you. Carol’s got it into her head that I need more flying lessons, so there’s that. I – oh, I went to the Met yesterday and did some sketches. Boring stuff, you wouldn’t like it.”

“No naked ladies?” Bucky asks with a smile. A tear rolls down his cheek, and he wipes it away.

“Some naked ladies,” Steve says, a wicked hint to his voice. “Like talking to a rock, though, Buck, I don’t know about ‘em.” Bucky wishes he could return the chuckle that Steve lets out. “I was thinking about taking art classes, you know, to sketch some live models.”

“When you gonna let me model for you? I’m better than any random guy off the street,” Bucky says, finally able to break a smile.

“You gonna pose like a Greek god?” Steve teases. “You’ll have to wear a toga.”

“You live with a Norse god and you still insist on drawing those statues,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “You should draw Thor.”

“In nothing but the cape?”

“Nothing but the cape.”

Bucky feels calmer now, more aware. He’s thirsty, hungry, and exhausted, but he feels something else. _Relieved_ , he thinks, to hear Steve’s voice over the phone.

“Thank you,” Bucky says quietly.

“You’re welcome,” Steve says softly. “Are you going to be okay?”

Bucky glances down at the map in the driver’s seat, squinting at the route he’s marked out. He could go a different way, now, backtrack to throw off any tails, ditch this car and get a new one and –

“Steve,” he says in a small voice, “can you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Ask me to come back to New York,” Bucky says, voice hoarse in the enclosed silence of his car. Over the phone, Steve takes a sharp breath. For a moment, Bucky doesn’t think Steve will do it.

“Bucky,” Steve says earnestly, “please, come home.”

Bucky swallows, his dry throat clicking.

“I will,” he promises, “but I got something to do first.”

*

He arrives in Cleveland in six hours and makes it into the museum an hour before closing.

The exhibit costs extra, and it’s arranged differently than it was in the Smithsonian, but it’s the same pictures on display. Bucky stands and watches the video clip of the newsreels carefully, searching the faces he sees on repeat. He stares at his face – at Steve’s.

They’re laughing in one shot; a faded, grainy film outtake in black and white. Bucky searches his old eyes, looking for something he can read, some tell that betrays him. He can’t find it.

He stays until the museum closes.

*

The first time he visits Peggy Carter, it’s a bad day, and he can’t stay very long. He sits with her and listens patiently, until the nurse says he should probably leave. She recognizes him, though. The nurse comments that she must have known him as a child.

The second time, she’s lucid. The nurse lets him into her room and he walks slowly up to Peggy’s bed, holding a bouquet of flowers like a lifeline.

“Took you long enough,” Peggy says, looking over at him from the bed. “What are those? Roses? Put them in a vase, there are plenty – yes, those are wilted, anyways, aren’t they.”

Bucky takes the wilted yellow tulips out of the vase and replaces them with his pink roses, throwing the old flowers away. He turns to Peggy and sits beside her bed.

“I wondered when you’d turn up, James,” she says. “Oh – I’m sorry. Steve’s told me you’re going by ‘Bucky,’ now.”

“He told you about me?” Bucky blinks. He hadn’t considered that.

“Of course,” Peggy chuckles, “Doesn’t shut up about you, honestly.”

Bucky looks down at his hands in his lap. “Has he told you…everything?” he asks, feeling strangely ashamed.

“No, he hasn’t,” Peggy sighs. “But Sharon has, and I know what they did to you. I’m sorry, Sergea —Bucky.” She coughs into her hand.

He blinks a few times at her apology, and wonders what Steve would say to that. “Thanks,” he tries.

“Before you ask,” she says, “no, I didn’t know you very well. We were acquaintances. You were Steve’s friend, not mine.”

“I know,” he sighs. “But we knew each other, didn’t we?” he asks.

“We did,” Peggy smiles. “You asked me to dance, once.” Bucky snorts.

“Bet Steve loved that.”

“I thought you were goading him into asking me himself,” Peggy replies.

“Didn’t work, did it?” he says, although he knows the answer.

“Short of an outright dare, I don’t think anything could have…” she trails off, eyes going a little misty, and Bucky turns to a tray with a pitcher to pour her a glass of water.

“Drink this,” he says, helping her drink. After a minute, he sets the glass down and waits.

“What were you going to ask me?” Peggy asks, her voice worn and rough. “I didn’t know you very well, Sergeant Barnes, we were only acquaintances.”

Bucky takes a slow and steady breath, waiting for her to look back over at him. He meets her eye.

“How did I feel about him?” Bucky asks. “Did I…? Was I–?”

“You can say it,” Peggy says softly.

“Was I in love with him?” Bucky asks, his voice a hoarse whisper. Peggy leans in closer to hear him.

She clears her throat and says, “You should ask him that.”

“I can’t,” Bucky shakes his head fervently. “That’s not the kind of thing I can ask him.”

“Of course you can,” Peggy says in exasperation. “Steve would never lie to you, and he’d never abandon you or judge you. It’s a perfectly reasonable question, all things considered.”

“That’s not what I’m afraid of,” Bucky admits.

“What are you afraid of?” Peggy asks him gently. Bucky sighs, running a hand through his long hair and realizing with a jolt that he hasn’t washed it in a few days. He feels almost _sheepish_ under Peggy’s gaze.

“You’ve heard about phantom limbs?” he starts, holding up his metal arm and waving the fingers. “I have feeling in my bionic arm – they’ve hooked it up to my nervous system. But, sometimes, I’ll feel an itch, a twinge, or, like – like there are ants crawling up my arm. I thought it was a glitch, but Stark says it’s natural.” Bucky takes a long, deep breath, and Peggy waits for him to gather his thoughts and his composure.

“What if I’m just remembering what it was like to love him?” Bucky asks. “What if – what if this isn’t _me_? I need to know the truth, Peggy. About what he felt for Steve.”

“Whatever the truth is,” Peggy says, “does it make what you’re feeling now any less real?”

He’s silent. He isn’t sure that he deserves her kindness, but he doesn’t want to disagree or rebuke her. He wants to show Peggy Carter the respect she deserves. Bucky lowers his eyes.

Peggy reaches forward and takes his left hand in hers, looking down at the cybernetics. She takes his other hand and clasps them both together. The warm, soft heat of her hands cradles his.

“You’re a good man, Bucky Barnes, and you deserve a good life,” she says. “So does Steve. I filled my life with love; now, it’s your turn.”


	5. Chapter 4

A week after his visit with Peggy, he finds a manila file on his kitchen table. Bucky instantly goes into high alert, reaching for the knife in his belt. There’s a post it note stuck to the outside. He freezes.

_‘You do not need redemption, and I am not sending you as a soldier on a mission,_ ’ it reads in shaking handwriting, _‘so I am offering you closure, if you wish.’_

Peggy was once the director of SHIELD, he remembers. Bucky opens the file, addressed to him from Agent Sharon Carter, and smiles to himself.

*                                                                

What he remembers is this:

_cold, cold, cold._

*

The snow is up to Bucky’s waist in the mountains, gusting down at him from all angles. The wind blows through him, sharp as a knife. It finds the cracks in his insulated armor and cuts through. His hair whips in his face.

Bucky squints through his goggles at the mountainside. It feels familiar in the same way a dream does, and he knows: he’s been here before.

The file said that it was long deserted, but Bucky turns off the safety on his gun when he finds the door. It opens like a vault, the heavy iron door swinging open to reveal a dark hole of a bunker in the mountain. Bucky turns on a flashlight and points it inside. Empty.

It’s eerily deserted. The floor of the old HYDRA base is covered with years of dust. It’s been gutted; every piece of equipment that hasn’t been ripped from the walls or consoles has been smashed. There’s no sign that anyone else has been here in over a decade. Bucky wonders how the place is still standing. His brain informs him that it was built by the Russians during the second World War.

Bucky follows his instincts through the bunker. He walks down narrow, rusty hallways, muffling his steps on the metal floors until he is silent as a spider. He wonders, did he learn such things within these walls? He turns down another hallway and kicks open a door, one that turns out  to be a medical bay, and he has his answer.

No. This was where he was born.

It comes back with frightening clarity as he stares at the metal table that lays on its side in the middle of the room. The burning, searing pain in his arm – the screams – copper in his mouth, sand on his tongue – repeating his name and serial number until that’s all it was, a serial number, and he could no longer remember the name –

Bucky turns with a start and points his gun at the doorway, his finger on the trigger.

_Click._ From the darkness of the door, a figure levels a gun at him.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Natasha says, stepping from the doorway. Bucky lowers his gun.

“I could ask you the same question,” he says. Natasha stares at him for a long moment before he says, “You wanna point that thing somewhere else?”

Cautiously, she holsters her gun. “What are you doing here?” she repeats, eyeing him suspiciously.

“Peggy Carter thought I might find closure here,” he says, looking around the room. “This is where I was – well, made.” Natasha swallows.

“You fell not very far from here,” she says. Her eyes are wide, trained on him with a level of mistrust that he hasn’t seen in her for years.

“I know, “ Bucky nods. “Why are you here?”

 “This base was run by the Russians,” she says, eyes finally looking away from Bucky to glance around the empty medical bay. “I’m tracing a lead.” She doesn’t elaborate.

Not quite turning his back on her, Bucky steps forward into the room, watching for booby traps. The equipment here is  broken, smashed on purpose before the base was evacuated, presumably in a hurry. It wasn’t worth the risk to self-destruct and bring down the mountain.

“There’s nothing here,” he says, opening a file cabinet that’s been turned over. “They cleared it out.”

“My lead didn’t seem to think so,” Natasha says sharply. Bucky frowns, staring at the dark metal of the bunker’s wall. It looks like the wall of a vault with bolts drilled into the metal panels to seal them together. Rust gathers at the head of each bolt.

“Your lead was wrong,” Bucky sighs, running his bionic hand along a panel. The sound of metal against metal echoes in the room.

“Closure,” Natasha repeats his words. “Why did Peggy Carter think you could find closure here? She headed SHIELD, didn’t she? They must’ve found this place in the 90’s, after the KGB dissolved. They’d have swept it clean. How are you going to find closure in that?”

“I don’t – _Oh,”_ Bucky breathes, the last piece clicking into place. He presses a bolt on the wall.

The panel slides away seamlessly, revealing a computer screen. There’s a keypad and a thumbprint authorization pad.

When Bucky glances at Natasha, she nods, her gun already out and waiting.

He types in the passcode before realizes he knows it, and presses the thumb of his right hand into the authorization pad. Bucky holds his breath as the computer processes the input.

The wall begins to slide away. Bucky raises his gun and motions for Natasha to cover him as he enters. He sees no alarms or traps, nothing to betray anti-intruder systems, but he isn’t going to risk it.

He shines his flashlight into what appears to be a small control room. The walls are covered with screens; some broken with the tubes exposed. Others seem intact. A dust-covered control console is set into the wall with two wheeled chairs sitting in front of it. The dust is thicker here by decades. This is the only completely undisturbed part of the base.

Natasha breathes out slowly behind him.

“What is it?” he asks her in a whisper.

“The last time I came across old tech in a bunker like this, Steve and I were nearly killed by a missile,” she mutters.

“You’ve got nothing to worry about, Zola was uploaded to the Internet years ago,” Bucky replies wryly, stepping closer to the screens. “But let’s hope this isn’t déjà vu.” He switches the screens on with a flick of a button.

As the system loads, Natasha steps closer, typing a series of commands into the computer. Bucky isn’t an expert, but she’s a hacker. Within minutes, a quarter of the unbroken screens are lit up.

“Video files,” she says. “When SHIELD raided this place in the 90’s, they probably knew this room was here, but didn’t have the tech to break into it without setting off the booby traps. It’s still intact – although half the data is corrupted. I might be able to retrieve some of it, or…” she hits a button, and all of the screens go blank.

“What did you–?” he starts, but then, the video starts.

The picture is pixilated, taken from an angle that can only mean a surveillance camera. Bucky feels his heart pounding in his chest.

Two women, both of them blonde, are fighting under the supervision of a burly man in a suit. They spar, one sending the other to the red mat that makes up the floor. The man yells something, but there isn’t sound. The taller blonde advances on the shorter woman, pulls a knife from her belt – and Natasha speeds through the rest of the video.

The next video is the same, but with two men. The next video pits the winner from the first fight against the winner from the second. Natasha types something into the computer and the video pauses.

“Are you sure you’re okay with watching this?” she asks. Bucky nods numbly, but Natasha gives him a fixed stare. She wants more from him than that.

“I knew that code. I was _here._ I need to know,” he says. His voice is hoarse.

Natasha nods.

They speed through the videos, watching as fast as Bucky can watch and still make out the figures. He recognizes a face here, a fighting style there, but he doesn’t say anything to Natasha. He glances over her as she starts each video, searching her face. She’s schooled her expression into a carefully blank look. Bucky licks his lips and turns back to the screens to watch with clenched fists. He tries to see through his anger.

The ninth video is him.

Natasha doesn’t seem to realize at first. He looks different – he _moves_ different, more like a wild animal than a human being. His fighting style is brutally efficient. The Winter Soldier takes down his opponent in three strikes.

Natasha starts the next video. Alone in the middle of the room, the woman from the first video executes a series of moves. She stops and turns to someone out of frame. The Winter Soldier walks onscreen and repeats the motions, moving fluidly from strike to strike. When the woman repeats the movements, he corrects her.

Bucky feels sick to his stomach. Natasha switches to the next video, which is mostly the same. She types something else into the computer. Bucky watches as she stares blankly ahead, her expression unchanging. Natasha opens another file and carefully selects a video from the list, dated later than the others.

“ _You_ trained me,” she says tonelessly, hitting play.

Bucky watches as he walks onto the screen. His hair is longer than before, time having passed between the first videos and the new ones. A small figure follows him onto the mat. A girl with red hair. She couldn’t have been older than eight.

“The itsy bitsy spider,” Bucky whispers, blinking because he doesn’t know where those words came from. “Natalia. I – I’m sorry. I didn’t remember.”

“Neither did I,” Natasha answers.

She looks over at him. At first, Bucky is afraid to meet her gaze. When he finally does, he sees no blame.

“I’m sorry,” he says, chest tight. “I’m sorry. I’m – you were so _young._ ”

Natasha sets a hand on his shoulder and looks into his eyes. “I’m sorry they did that to you,” she says. “To both of us. It’s not your fault.”

“I’m sorry,” is all he can say. On the screen, the Winter Soldier shows little Natalia a kick. She replicates it perfectly.

In the middle of the old HYDRA base, Natasha steps forward and wraps her arms around Bucky. She buries her face in his chest. Bucky rests his chin in her hair, holding her close to him. They stay like that for a long moment.

“Now it’s even more embarrassing that I can kick your ass,” comes Natasha’s muffled voice, breaking the silence. When Bucky manages a chuckle, she only clings to him more tightly.

*

They agree to save the data that might be useful and burn the rest. Natasha lets him do the honors, lighting a fuse to the small explosives that incinerate the hard drives. Bucky remembers her in flickers, like a candle flame. She stares at him tight-lipped and doesn’t reveal what she remembers of him.

Bucky supposes it’s for the best.

They part ways at a train station; Natasha heads towards Germany, and Bucky takes a train to Paris. It’s rainy and miserable the entire time he’s there. He holes up in a safehouse of Natasha’s for a week, hiding. He has few delusions about what from.

_You ever coming home?_ Steve texts him after a week.

_Why? Is something wrong? You should come here,_ Bucky texts back, _I’ll take you to that art museum._

_I miss you,_ Steve replies frankly. Bucky’s heart pounds in his throat. He stares at his phone for too long, scared to death at how exposed three words can make him feel.

_Yeah. Me too._

*

Bucky looks up from his pillow, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. It’s eight in the morning.

“What the – hell?” he mutters, swinging his legs out of bed.  He’s only been home a few days, and he hasn’t left the apartment since. (He’s been ordering in.) He stomps over to the door and looks through the peephole.

_Dingdong. Knockknockknock. Dingdongdingdongdingdongding--_

“What the fuck?” Bucky says, pulling his door open. Sam Wilson glares at him.

“Yeah, I could say the same thing,” Sam says, crossing his arms. “I’ve been standing here for ten minutes, Barnes, what’s your deal?”

“I was sleeping,” Bucky frowns. Sam steps around him and into his apartment, ignoring the look Bucky sends his way. Bucky closes the door behind him.

“Sleeping,” Sam says, looking around the apartment. He takes in the cluttered mess and the pizza boxes, the trashcan overflowing with Chinese takeout containers. Sam fixes Bucky with a look. “Yeah, right. Steve hasn’t seen you in a month, you know that? No one has,” he says.

Bucky meets Sam’s look with a glare of his own.

“I’ve been busy,” he says.

“Sharon Carter called me up two weeks ago, wondering why you were visiting her aunt, Natasha texted me one week ago, asking me if you’d made it back to New York safely, and Steve,” Sam takes a deep breath, “Steve hasn’t shut up about you since you two got kicked out of the movies a month ago.”

“I had some stuff to take care of,” Bucky answer with a shrug, going for nonchalance. Sam squints at him.

“You know that doesn’t work on me anymore, man,” Sam says. “You tried Mr. Roboto for three years. You don’t get to make practical jokes a regular part of your jogging routine and still play the apathy card.”

“The apathy card,” Bucky repeats tonelessly.

“Yeah, you’re doing it right now, smartass,” Sam says. “Was that meant to be ironic? Because it sounded ironic to me.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Bucky says. “Peggy had some intel for me. I investigated some leads, went to Europe, ran into Natasha, came back. Took me a month. That’s all.”

Sam gives him an unimpressed look. Bucky wonders if he’s not as good at lying as he used to be, or if Sam is just stubborn.

“You don’t have to do this,” Sam says, his voice growing softer. “You made progress, Bucky, that’s a good thing. It’s not always a straight line to recovery. If you felt like you needed some time to yourself, you could have said.” Bucky swallows against the way his throat swells at the gentle note in Sam’s voice. Sam _cares_ about Bucky. He’s not simply here because someone sent him. He’s here as a friend.

“I—“ Bucky says, voice faltering. “It wasn’t that,” he says honestly. “I needed the time for other reasons. To figure some things out.”

He can’t believe he’s doing this.

“Alright,” Sam nods in understanding. “But that’s not your get-out-of-jail-free-card, okay? Don’t disappear like that. Give a guy some warning. Wouldn’t want to worry your friends or anything.”

“Nice to know you worried about me, Wilson,” Bucky says, smiling. Sam rolls his eyes.

“I wasn’t the one worrying,” Sam says. “Personally, I was hoping Steve would find a running partner who runs like a normal person, you know? I’ve about had it with supersoldiers and alien gods.”

*

Bucky gets up early the next morning. He plans on meeting Sam and Steve to go running, as they usually do. He misjudges the time, though, and ends up a half hour early. He jogs around the park in the meantime, trying to focus on counting his steps, measuring his breathing, focusing on his running instead of what he’s going to say to Steve.

The thing is, it’s obvious that something’s wrong. Bucky knows it. And Steve isn’t dumb, he’ll know something has changed between them. He’ll blame himself, Bucky’s sure of it.

Bucky’s task is to make sure Steve knows that this isn’t his fault – and to prevent him from ever finding out the truth.

He’s on his second lap when he spies Steve doing warm-ups, using an empty bench for his stretches. Bucky walks up behind him.

“If you’re trying to sneak up on me, you’ve gotten pretty rusty,” Steve says without turning around.

“Please,” Bucky laughs, “if I wanted to sneak up on you, you wouldn’t stand a chance – pretty sure you didn’t before, actually.”

Steve straightens up and turns to face Bucky. An easy smile breaks across his face like a sunrise. Bucky bites his cheek and tells himself to stop being ridiculously poetic inside his head.

“Really?” Steve says cheekily, “I think your memory’s going – pretty sure I won that fight.”

“Oh, we’re joking about this, now, are we?” Bucky says, holding his fists up in a mock-threatening manner. “Alright, Captain Popsicle, how about a rematch? One where you don’t call uncle halfway through?”

“Captain Popsicle?” Steve laughs, crossing his arms. “Rich, coming from the Cold Shoulder.” Bucky laughs, making a face.

“’Cold Shoulder’?” he repeats, wincing. “Really? That’s the best you could come up with?”

Steve shrugs. “Dammit, Jim, I’m a supersoldier, not a comedian,” he replies with a wink.

“You’ve been hanging out with Stark too much,” Bucky sighs.

“Agreed,” Steve laughs. “You up for another couple laps?” he asks, gesturing around the park at their normal route. Bucky nods.

Steve lets Bucky set the pace, slower than usual. Sam isn’t there, but Bucky doesn’t ask about him. He’d probably opted out, knowing that Bucky would show up the next day, so he’d have to talk to Steve alone.

_Damn you, Wilson._

“How are you doing?” Steve asks, his eyebrows crinkling up with concern. Bucky will never cease to be surprised by that. He honestly does care. He always does.

“I don’t know,” Bucky answers truthfully. “How about you?”

“Okay,” Steve says. “Tired.”

“Having trouble sleeping again?” Bucky asks, and immediately regrets his question.

“Again?” Steve asks, looking forwards again. They quiet as they pass a lone jogger.

Once they’ve passed her, Bucky says, “When I lived with you,  you didn’t sleep much.”

“Well,” Steve says, sighing. “Looks like you didn’t get much sleep then, either. Nightmares?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “I still get them. You?”

“Do me a favor,” Steve starts, tilting his head to the side.

“I don’t like the sound of this,” Bucky jokes.

“Call me,” Steve says. “Next time you can’t sleep.”

“And that’s doing _you_ a favor?” Bucky asks skeptically. Steve just lifts his water bottle to his lips and takes a swig.

Steve hasn’t asked where he’s been for the past month, Bucky realizes belatedly – just how he is. He’s respecting Bucky’s privacy. Or, Bucky thinks, he knows already.

“I visited Peggy Carter,” he tells Steve, half because he feels like Steve should know, and half because he’s wondering what Steve will say. Part of him feels guilty and manipulative for it.

“Really?” Steve asks, looking surprised.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, “didn’t Wilson or Sharon Carter tell you?”

Steve shakes his head. “No,” he says, and then cracks a smile. “You weren’t gossiping about me, were you?”

“Well, you’re not conceited at all,” Bucky laughs. “No, I just wanted to ask her a few things. I was lucky. I came on a good day.”

Steve’s silence betrays the fact that he doesn’t trust himself to speak, or so Bucky figures. He decides to keep going.

“She sent me a few files – well, I’m pretty sure Sharon broke into my apartment and left them on my kitchen table,” he continues. “So I went to the Alps.”

Steve’s pace stutters and he looks over, startled. “Bucky—“ he starts.

“Calm down, Rogers – at your age, you’ll give yourself a heart attack,” Bucky says easily, until Steve falls back into the calm rhythm of his run, _one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four._

“You shouldn’t have gone back there alone,” Steve says. A vein in his jaw twitches as he clenches it. Bucky sighs.

“It’s fine,” he replies, because Natasha’s story is not his to tell, “I can handle myself. But I found a few things. I used to – to train operatives. I don’t really remember much, but I guess I was on a longer leash back then.”

Steve steels himself before he asks, “And then what?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky shrugs. “But that’s when they started to put me on ice between missions. They were selective when they wiped me. I remember the base in the Alps, the lessons that made up my training, when they gave me the arm…I remember people,” he says in a low voice, not looking at Steve. “People who were important, somehow.”

“Important to HYDRA?”

“Important to me.”

They’re already back at their starting point, their first lap completed. Neither of them talk as they pass a group of moms with baby strollers as they talk and laugh their way down the path. Bucky falls back into step beside Steve and counts his steps, timing his breath, focusing on the here and now and trying not to panic. His hands shake.

“Peggy said she didn’t know me very well,” Bucky says, not looking at Steve.

“She didn’t,” Steve replies. “You weren’t close. I don’t think you ever got over getting turned down for a dance.” Bucky can hear the smile in Steve’s voice.

“Was I involved with anyone?” Bucky blurts out, his tone sharp and cool. He clamps his mouth shut instantly. The words ring in his ears.

“You took a lotta dames out, Buck,” Steve answers. Bucky can tell Steve’s staring. Bucky doesn’t look at him.

“Yeah,” Bucky says shortly. “But, y’know, was there anyone I was serious about? A special girl or guy?”

_One-two-three-four,_ he counts in his head as his feet slap against the pavement, _one-two-three-four._

“Not that I knew of,” Steve replies. “You were kind of a rolling stone.” Bucky’s about to brave opening his mouth and asking Steve what he means when Steve says, “Is that what you asked Peggy?”

“Uh,” Bucky starts, mouth going dry.

“Not that it’s any of my business,” Steve says quickly. “But, y’know, you can always ask me that kinda stuff.”

“I know.”

“That answer your question?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky lies. When he finally looks up at Steve, he doesn’t sense any change in the way Steve’s eyes glance over at him. “What is it?” Bucky asks.

“Nothing,” Steve says, but he’s smiling. “I’m just glad you’re back, that’s all.”

“Rogers,” Bucky starts, “you –“

Bucky jolts into a defensive stance in front of Steve, looking upwards at the skies.

A spaceship flies across, engines grinding out an ear-piercing sound. Steve’s Avengers ID Card goes off.

“Damn it,” Steve swears, pulling his electronic card out of his pocket. Bucky doesn’t have his on him, so he skims the readout over Steve’s shoulder. Steve looks up, a frown twisted across his mouth.

“What is it?” Bucky asks.

“Kree,” Steve says. “Carol will be here in a sec in a Quinjet. You wanna suit up?”

It’s an offer Bucky knows he can refuse – and that Steve will respect his choice, either way. He meets Steve’s eye.

“Sure, Rogers,” Bucky smiles, clapping Steve on the shoulder. “You know I got your six.”

*

What he pretends he doesn’t remember is this:

_Steve, looking up from the sand with a smile on his face. He squints at Bucky, his head silhouetted by the sun, and screws up his face._

_“If ya keep making that face, it’ll stick that way,” Bucky says._

_“Jerk,” Steve says. Bucky throws his head back and laughs –_

_– But there’s nothing he can do, just kick the brick aside with his shoe and hand the key to Steve, whose shaking hands can’t seem to find it. He squeezes Steve’s shoulder and it’s bony and thin, too thin._

_“I’m with you ‘till the end of the line, pal,” he drawls, and it’s a promise he intends to keep—_

It’s a promise he doesn’t keep.


	6. Chapter 5

Bucky grunts as Clint presses him into the mat. He struggles, trying to find some kind of leverage to fight him off. Bucky tries to pull his arm out of the lock. Clint laughs.

“Give him the chair!” the girl Clint mentors yells unhelpfully. She’s sitting on the sidelines with a handful of her Young Avengers friends. For the life of him, Bucky can’t figure out why they’re here.

“What chair?” Clint yells. Bucky uses the lapse in his concentration to flip him over onto his back. Somehow, Clint uses the momentum to throw Bucky off.

“Not you,” she replies. “Come on, Barnes, give him the chair!”

 “ _What chair?”_ Bucky repeats. He jumps to his feet. Clint somersaults away and lands on his feet in a defensive position.

“It’s a metaphorical chair,” sighs one of the Young Avengers – one of Wanda’s boys, Bucky thinks. “Like in wrestling, except not.”

“I can find a chair if it’ll make this fight more interesting, _chicos_ ,” the other girl says, faking a yawn. She has dark curly hair.

“Can we shut up about chairs?” one boy says (Eli, Bucky thinks, who had introduced himself and held out his hand for Bucky to shake). “I’m trying to watch.”

“Do they always follow you around, Barton?” Bucky asks, couching low and circling Clint. He laughs.

“They’re here to watch _you_ , Barnes,” Clint says, tilting his head to the side. Bucky purses his lips.

“Yeah, and it’s not much of a show so far,” Clint’s protégée says, “you know, Teddy, maybe you were right. We _should_ go see if Stark will give us a tour of the Tower.”

Clint rolls his eyes, but Bucky steels himself. He runs forward and jumps, spinning in the air before he kicks Clint to the ground, holding back as not to break any of his ribs. He doesn’t land too hard. He’s back on his feet before Bucky can keep him down, and then Bucky is fighting off a volley of blows, holding up his arm to block every punch and hit.

Bucky pulls the fake rubber knife out of his belt and twirls it in his fingers, slashing at Clint’s arm. Clint dodges the hit and smacks his forearm into Bucky’s. Bucky drops the knife.

Clint catches it in midair. He kicks out, knocking Bucky’s feet out from under him. Last minute, Bucky reaches out with his metal arm, intending to grab Clint’s shoulder – but he hesitates, imagining it dislocating under the force.

Gravity catches up and Bucky lands flat on his back, the air knocked out of him. Clint twists the bionic arm and locks it into a hold, preventing him from using it any further, and lands on top of Bucky. He holds the rubber knife fast to Bucky’s throat.

“Goddamn,” Bucky hears Eli whisper.

Clint smirks at Bucky, waiting.

“Fine,” Bucky sighs. “You win.”

Clint pushes off Bucky and gets to his feet. He turns to the kids, brushing himself off.

“Can anyone tell me where Barnes screwed up?” Clint asks. Bucky lays his head back on the mat and groans.

One of the boys – Wanda’s kid’s boyfriend, the shapeshifter – raises a hand like he’s in a class before he answers.

“He held back,” the boy says. “He could have grabbed onto you to catch himself, and then use the force against you to drag you down.”

“Or he could’ve kneed you in the balls instead of worrying about his fancy knife stuff,” the curly-haired girl mutters.

“That’s fighting dirty, America,” Wanda’s kid says, turning to her. Bucky feels something rise in his throat. He tries to swallow, but he can’t bit back the feeling, or the words that rise to his mind.

“There’s no such thing as fighting dirty when you’re in a fight,” Bucky sighs, getting to his feet. Clint gives him a look.

“Yeah, but, like, you don’t kick someone when they’re down,” Clint’s protégée says.

“You don’t use unnecessary force, no,” Clint answers. “That’s not what Barnes is saying.” Bucky glances at Clint, feeling a spark of annoyance.

“I’m saying, when you’re really in a fight? There are no rules,” he says coolly. He feels the words pour out of him, but he doesn’t _feel_ them. He feels cold, numb. He ignores the way the kids are staring at him.

“Out on the street, it’s not like it is in here – you guys know that,” he continues dispassionately. “When it comes down to it, you don’t wait for your target to arm themselves to even out the odds. Hair pulling, biting, a kick to the crotch? It’s all fair game, because _nothing_ is fair in a fight.” He takes a steady breath. “If you let up, even for a second, you could get yourself or your friends killed.”

“Bucky–” Clint starts.

“You work with what you’ve got,” Bucky continues sharply. He turns to Wanda’s kid. “What’s – what’s your power? Magic, or something?” he asks.

“Actually,” the boy says, “I’m a mu—“

“There you are,” Steve says loudly, walking up behind them in the gym. “Wanda’s been looking for you, Billy.”

Bucky freezes.

“Sorry, sir,” Billy says, turning bright red at being addressed by Captain America. He jumps to his feet.

“ _’Sir,’_ ” Clint laughs behind his hand. Steve gives Clint a look.

“Please, Clint,” the younger Hawkeye sighs. “You’re just jealous that no one calls _you_ ‘sir.’”

With a few tentative glances at Bucky, the Young Avengers follow Billy out of the gym, leaving Bucky alone with Clint and Steve.

Bucky can hear his heart pounding in his ears.

“Cap,” Clint starts, glancing at Bucky. “Don’t—“

“How long were you there?” Bucky asks, turning to Steve. He clenches his hands into his fists. “How long?”

“Long enough,” Steve answers. Bucky opens his mouth, but Clint interrupts him first.

“Calm the hell down, Barnes,” Clint says. He walks to the edge of the mat and grabs Bucky’s water bottle, tossing it to him.

Bucky takes a deep breath, glaring at Clint as he counts to ten. He uncaps the water bottle and takes a long swig. He can feel Steve’s eyes on him.

Bucky feels exhausted. In that moment, he wants nothing more than to go home, curl up in his bed, and sleep. He lowers the water bottle from his lips and closes his eyes. He hears Clint say something to Steve in a low voice, but the words don’t translate in his mind. Bucky realizes he’s shaking.

“Bucky,” someone says, low in his ear. “You okay? Bucky?”

“ _Yes!_ ” Bucky snaps.

He opens his eyes and looks guiltily up at Steve.

“Want to try answering that again?” Steve asks gently, catching his gaze and holding it. Bucky looks into Steve’s blue eyes. He sees himself reflected there, his gaze dead and cold. He closes his eyes again.

“No,” Bucky mutters. “I need – a minute.”

Steve leads him to the side of the room. Clint’s gone, whether to look after the Young Avengers or give Bucky space, he doesn’t know. Steve pulls over a rolled-up mat so they can sit. Bucky’s legs collapse beneath him.

“What do you need?” Steve asks, sitting carefully beside him.

“Just stay with me for a little while,” Bucky says. “Please.”

Steve stays; he waits quietly, patiently, sitting peacefully as Bucky measures his breaths in steady counts of ten.

“What’s going on in there?” Steve asks after awhile. Bucky isn’t sure of how much time has passed.

“Breathing,” Bucky says, patting his chest twice. “One thing at a time, and breathing’s first.”

Steve nods. “Where’d you learn that?” he asks. Bucky had never agreed to therapy – when he lived with Steve, coping consisted of a punching bag or a bottle, most days.

“Tony, actually, back when I was living with you,” Bucky says. He takes a swig from his water bottle. “I know. Makes you think, doesn’t it?” he asks rhetorically, looking at the ceiling of the gym. “We’re all a little screwed up somehow.”

“I wouldn’t put it like that,” Steve says. “We’ve all been wounded, somehow. Some more than others.” He rests his hand on Bucky’s knee, a gesture that’s probably supposed to be reassuring. Bucky gulps down more water.

Steve must take this as a plea for silence. He sits still, his hand still on Bucky’s knee, the heat radiating off his body. He could lean over and kiss Steve if he wanted to, he thinks. He wants to. It’d be easy; all he’s gotta do is lean a few inches to the left, tilt his chin up, press his lips to Steve’s and hope for the best.

Somehow, doing something so easy is the hardest thing. Bucky’s walked into burning buildings, bombed tunnels, bled out onto the pavement and kept going. But he can’t lean over and kiss Steve Rogers. 

“I used to train operatives, I told you that,” Bucky says, looking down at his knees. His eyes fix on Steve’s hand.

“You did,” Steve says. “You said you didn’t remember much.”

“I don’t,” Bucky confesses with a shrug. “I saw some video footage. I think I was – I was in charge of recruits, for a few years. I think my programming began to slip after that, and they put me in cryo-freeze.”

“The kids…reminded you of them,” Steve says, realization dawning.

“Yeah, I think so,” Bucky says weakly. “They’re – they’re just _kids_ , Rogers. I trained _children_ , younger than them. I taught them how to kill.”

“And who told you to do that, huh? Who _made_ you do that?” Steve asks. “There were some men we – I fought with that couldn’t have been old enough to fight. That lied on their enlistment forms. There was a kid who couldn’t have been older than sixteen, and I let him go out onto the front lines. I let him _die._ ”

“You didn’t _let_ him do anything,” Bucky starts to say, “if he enlisted, you couldn’t have stopped that kid any more than you could’ve stopped –“ he stops in his tracks and growls. “Damn it, Rogers,” he says. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?” Steve asks innocently.

“Trying to – ugh,” Bucky turns his head away, unable to hide a laugh. “Trying to make me argue against you and prove whatever your point was in the first place. Trying to make me believe none of it was my fault.”

“Because it wasn’t,” Steve says. He pats Bucky’s knee gently, and removes his hand to squeeze Bucky’s shoulder instead. “It wasn’t you, Buck.”

“And that’s where you’re always wrong,” Bucky sighs. He rubs his forehead.

“Well, if you’re never going to agree with me, then you aren’t allowed to only take credit for the bad things you’ve done,” Steve says persistently. “Those good things you’ve done? Even if you don’t remember them, you’ve done those, too.”

“You’re so stubborn,” Bucky sighs, accepting defeat.

“So’re you.” Steve bumps their elbows together. “Come on,” he says, slinging an arm over Bucky’s shoulder and pulling him to his feet. “You’ve had a rough afternoon. Wanna head up to my room? I can order pizza.”

“You’re spoiling me, Rogers,” Bucky sighs, ducking his head as they walk out of the gym together.

“Well,” Steve says, “someone’s gotta.”

*

Bucky wakes up one morning with a text message from Sam Wilson:

_you wanna come to the semi-official avengers movie night tonight? there will be popcorn and steve._

Bucky blinks at his phone for about a minute before he replies, _Yes to the former, ??? to the latter._

_you don’t gotta front, dude,_ Sam texts back. _seen you staring at his ass while we’re running every goddamn morning._

Bucky groans and almost throws his phone across his apartment.

_Damn it, Wilson. Fine. I’ll be there._

As an afterthought, he adds: _But not bc of Rogers’ ass._

*

The woods are blindingly, brilliantly white, and the snow sears into his vision. It’s freezing. The world melts away behind him as he runs, trees and branches swooping at him from all sides like dark figures. He stumbles over a branch and nearly tumbles to the ground, but he picks himself up. Keeps running.

He runs and runs, like he’s being chased by dogs – like flames are licking up at his heels. Bullets spray past him in the woods, but he doesn’t bother ducking for cover. He needs to _run_. Hide.

He reaches a clearing in the woods and stops dead.

A metal chair sits in the middle of the clearing. Empty. Waiting.

_No._

He wants to run, to scream, but his voice catches in his throat, and his limbs grow limp and weak as he walks forward and falls into the chair – _No._

Metal  cuffs clamp down around his wrists and ankles. He tries to struggle –

He opens his mouth for the rubber guard –

“ _No!_ ” Bucky shrieks, jolting awake.

He’s panting and shaking, his throat raw from shouting, sweat running down his back. The sheets lay over him in tatters from where he’s torn them again with his metal hand. He’s wide awake, his heart racing, every breath desperate.

But he’s Bucky Barnes, in New York, in 2018.

“Fuck,” Bucky whispers, curling up into himself. He runs a hand through his hair, brushing a tangle out with his fingers. He takes a deep breath. Bucky pulls his sweat-soaked shirt over his head and throws it across the room. His heart beats in his chest like it’s trying to escape, and he can’t really blame it.

A glance at the holographic clock lighting up his bedside table tells him it’s after 2AM and he has a long, sleepless night ahead of him still. Bucky swings his legs over the side of the bed and wonders if it’s too late for a run.

He stops, though, and turns to the phone on his bedside table.

_This is probably a bad idea_ , he thinks as he dials.

“Hello?”

 Steve answers on the second ring. His voice isn’t groggy with sleep, and he doesn’t sound annoyed. Bucky allows himself another breath.

“Barnes speaking,” he says. Closes his eyes. Reminds himself that this is _Steve,_ that he called to talk, not to report.

“Bucky?” Steve asks, sounding a little unsure. “You having trouble sleeping, too?” he asks.

“Yes,” Bucky answers. His voice sounds cold and distant to his own ears. He swallows. “Sorry for bothering you,” he starts, ready to hang up.

“No – please don’t hang up,” Steve says quickly. “You alright? Is it nightmares?”

_It’s always nightmares_ , Bucky thinks. Doesn’t say it.

“No,” Bucky says, shaking his head. “I’m not alright. It’s – the chair. I keep dreaming about the chair they put me in to wipe me.”

He hears the quiet sigh in the back of Steve’s throat, the one that betrays his anger and frustration.

“You’re safe now,” Steve assures him. “They’re never going to put you there again.”

“I know,” Bucky says. He rubs his eyes. “You having bad dreams, too? Or am I interrupting something?” he tries to let a little bit of sardonic smirk into his voice, but the emotion doesn’t come through.

“There’s no _something_ to interrupt,” Steve says wryly. “I keep dreaming about – well. Can’t really sleep much in the first place.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. Steve waits for him to say something else, but he can’t think of anything else to say. Bucky swallows, feeling his mouth dry up.

“Hey,” Steve says. “Would you be, uh, adverse to a little company tonight? I know, it’s late, but –“

“Yes,” Bucky says quickly. “Please. Yes.”

Steve sighs in relief. “I’ll be there in twenty,” he says, like he’s been itching to leave since he picked up the phone. He hangs up.

Bucky goes to wait on his couch. He counts his breathing, and sits on the floor when he starts to imagine cuffs sprouting from the arms of the couch to snap around his wrists.

*

Steve only knocks twice before Bucky’s on his feet at the door, swinging it open to reveal Steve with his fist still in the air. Steve takes a step back, his eyes widening a little. Bucky just looks at him. He’s wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with a jacket thrown on against the chill. The bags underneath his eyes are dark, like his eyes. Faintly, Bucky thinks that Steve looks worse than _he_ does.

“Hey,” Steve says softly. He holds up a large thermos. “I, uh, brought some hot chocolate.”

“Right,” Bucky says, holding the door open. He turns on his heel and heads towards the kitchen for two mugs, leaving Steve to close the door.

Steve follows him, his eyes on the back of Bucky’s neck as he rummages around in his cupboard. He pulls two mugs out and rinses them out, just in case.

_You make this yourself, Rogers? You shouldn’t have,_ Bucky wants to say as he takes the thermos and pours out the hot chocolate. He doesn’t.

His fingers brush Steve’s as he hands him his mug of hot chocolate. Steve flinches, and a little hot chocolate spills over the side. Shoulders slumping, Steve turns and heads back to the living room, leaving Bucky in the kitchen to stare at his back.

Something’s wrong. Bucky can sense it in the air. Usually, Steve knows how to hide his pain. Steve’ll swallow it down and smile, keeping his cards to his chest, and covers it all up with a wry joke.

 “Hey, Rogers,” Bucky says, following Steve into the living room. Steve turns. His stare goes right through Bucky, like he’s water and Steve’s dying of thirst. Bucky swallows. “Wanna play cards?” he asks.

Bucky grabs a deck from his coffee table and sits cross-legged on the carpet. Steve sits across from him on the floor.

“Sure,” Steve says. It should come out easily, but it doesn’t – it sounds like Steve’s got something caught in his throat.

Bucky shuffles the deck and deals out their cards for a game of rummy. He takes his time sorting out his hand of cards and watches out of his peripheral vision as Steve stares blankly at his. Steve glances up at him when he thinks Bucky isn’t looking.

Bucky reaches over to the deck between them and flips over the top card.

“Hey,” he says as easily as he can, “did you dream about me?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Steve shrugs, looking down and picking a card from the deck. “Your turn.”

“Did you dream about me falling?” Bucky asks. “It’s okay.”

“It’s your turn,” Steve repeats tonelessly.

“Steve,” Bucky says, setting his cards down. He reaches over the deck and takes Steve’s hand in his own. It’s trembling.

Bucky cups Steve’s hand between his; flesh meeting metal. Steve stares. Bucky molds two of his fingers together and presses them against his right wrist until they find his pulse point. He waits quietly for a moment.

 “How’d you know?” Steve asks softly, his eyes fixed on their hands. He laces his fingers loosely around Bucky’s wrist.

_To hell with it,_ Bucky thinks. Steve needs to hear the truth.

“When I first moved out, I used to dream about you falling from the Helicarrier,” Bucky replies. “That I couldn’t find you in the murky water. I couldn’t go to your room to check that you were still breathing like I used to, so I, uh,” Bucky rubs the back of his neck, chuckling a little. “Hacked into your Netflix account to see the last time you watched something. The very definition of unhealthy behavior.”

“You could’ve just called me,” Steve says. He’s frowning.

“And you could’ve called me tonight,” Bucky says. Steve’s thumb is warm against his pulse point. Bucky shivers a little; Steve is absentmindedly stroking small circles into the inside of his wrist.

“Didn’t want to wake you,” Steve says. He smirks for a moment, and then adds: “I mean, what if you’d had a girl – a guy – over? Didn’t want to ruin the moment.”

“It’s funny,” Bucky says, smiling back at him. “When I called you, that possibility didn’t even cross my mind.”

Steve leans back, his fingers slipping from Bucky’s wrist. “Are you questioning my love life, Barnes?” he asks, looking mock-offended.

“What love life, Rogers?” Bucky shoots back with a grin. He picks up his hand of cards and sets down four aces.

“Damn it,” Steve swears, looking down at the card game, but he’s smiling again. Bucky lets his shoulders fall back as he relaxes.

They play rummy for over an hour, until Bucky hits 500 (no surprise) and they both begin to tire.

“Feel up to sitting on the couch?” Steve yawns, stretching his arms out over his head. “If you don’t, we can always –“

“Couch is fine,” Bucky says quickly, before Steve can suggest it. He knows what Steve was going to say, he _knows_ , and it’s not fair to make Steve lay next to him with only Bucky’s couch cushions between them and the floor. Not when Bucky can’t get that memory back.

Bucky sits in the middle of the couch with his feet curled up underneath him. It’s a small couch, so Steve takes the right end. He sits up against the arm, putting as much space between him and Bucky as possible.

“Jesus,” Bucky says, grabbing a pillow to lean back on. “I’m not going to break into a million pieces if you touch me, Rogers.” He stretches out, resting his feet in Steve’s lap like an asshole.

“Bucky!” Steve protests, laughing. He shifts over to get more comfortable, draping a hand over Bucky’s ankles. “Hey,” he says, seriously now, “whatever happened to ‘Steve’?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky furrows his brow, “what happened to that guy? Kind of a jerk, right?”

“No,” Steve shakes his head. “I asked you to call me Steve, but ever since you got back from – from wherever you were – you’ve been calling me ‘Rogers.’ What’s up?”

“Oh,” Bucky frowns. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it. Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Steve shakes his head. “Tony does it sometimes. And, I mean, everyone calls Coulson by his last name, and Fury—“

“Steve,” Bucky says to stop him. “Steve,” he smiles as he says it again, “Steven. Steven Grant.”

“Hey,” Steve protests, “my middle name is for emergency use only.”

“Ha,” Bucky says dryly. “If anyone gets to complain about their middle name, it’s me. ‘James Buchanan’ – really? Did he even do anything?”

Steve laughs. “It’s unique, I guess. Why did you stick with the nickname?” he asks suddenly. “I mean, I’m just curious. You could’ve called yourself anything – you had your pick of whatever name you wanted. You could’ve been James. Why choose ‘Bucky’?”

Bucky chuckles to himself. He looks down at his lap and picks at a loose thread on the hem of his shirt, shaking his head. “It’s kinda dumb,” he says, feeling self-conscious.

Steve tugs on the leg of Bucky’s sweatpants until he looks up.

“No, it’s not,” he says. “You can tell me.”

Bucky turns away and sighs, running a hand through his long hair. He wants to pull his legs up to his chest, but Steve’s got his legs and feet in his lap, his fingers absently tracing circles around Bucky’s kneecap. Bucky sits up against the couch and glances sideways at Steve. He looks at him and _wants_ , desperately, almost more than he’s wanted anything else within memory.

“When I was just the Winter Soldier –“ Bucky says, his voice unintentionally low. Steve leans in to hear him. “Before— I didn’t have a name. I was just ‘the asset,’ y’know? I had a codename. That was it. No name. They took everything else.”

“So you chose your own name,” Steve says softly. His hand stops moving on Bucky’s knee.

_To hell with it,_ Bucky thinks.

“No,” Bucky sighs. “ _You did._ You gave me a name, standing on a street in DC when I was nothing. No one had ever done that before.”

“Oh, Bucky,” Steve breathes, his head tilting to the right. He makes an aborted gesture with his hand, as though he were reaching out to touch Bucky’s face. Bucky’s heart jumps. “And you asked me –“

“Yeah,” Bucky says, and it’s the easiest thing in the world to pull himself forwards, half into Steve’s lap. He rests a hand on Steve’s cheek to make his intent clear. “You named me,” Bucky whispers before kissing Steve.

He’s scared at first that he’s read this wrong – that he should have asked aloud. But, by the time the fear hits him, Steve catches up and kisses Bucky back.

He pulls him closer and tangles a hand in Bucky’s long hair, kissing him slow, like he’s savoring it. Bucky wants to tear Steve apart from the inside out, kiss him quick and deep, but Steve fights him. He fights for the pace, and he wins out. Bucky realizes that he’s smiling.

They break the kiss. Steve’s hands move from Bucky’s hair to his waist. Bucky balances himself with Steve’s shoulders. Steve leans up and kisses him again, eyes fluttering shut. He’s not an experienced kisser, a little sloppy, but Bucky can’t even remember all the dames he’s supposedly kissed. No matter how Steve kisses, it’s fine with him.

It’s over too quick. Steve pulls back, panting. Bucky straddles Steve’s lap and wraps his arms around Steve’s shoulders. He leans his forehead in against Steve’s to steal another kiss.

“You don’t have to do this,” Steve says breathlessly, before he can make another move. Bucky freezes and pulls back.

“What?” he asks in confusion. “Don’t you want this?”

“It’s not that,” Steve sighs. There’s something off in his tone. Bucky slides off Steve’s lap and onto the cushion next to him, his heart beating in his throat.

“I was sure,” Bucky says, cursing himself, “I was so sure.”

“I just, I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do. To try to be someone you’re not.” Steve swallows, his throat bobbing. “You’re just getting back on your feet, you know? You don’t have to be – whoever it is you think you have to be.”

Bucky laughs bitterly. “If I don’t know who I am in the first place, how can I begin to be someone else?” he asks. “Some days I wake up and I can barely breathe, thinking that I could be turned into that – that _thing_ again. It would be easy. So easy, to slip back into mindless obedience, to sleep when the mission is done. This? This life, with the face of a dead man I’ll never be again? This is hard.”

“Bucky—“

“I’m not trying to be someone else, Steve,” Bucky says through gritted teeth. “Not anymore. Maybe I was trying to, at first, but not anymore. I don’t know who I am, but I know a few things. And I _thought_ I knew – I think I’m in love with you.”

Steve makes a strangled noise and runs a hand through his hair, looking panicked. Bucky rolls his lips together.

“C’mon, Steve, say something,” he says when Steve refuses to look up from his boots. “Seriously. Hey, we can pretend I never said that, if you’ll kiss me again.” He nudges Steve’s elbow with a smile.

“I was in love with you,” Steve says, voice muffled as he stares downwards, away from Bucky’s eyes. “I mean, before, in 1945, I was in love with you. And I never said, didn’t think it was an option. So I just need to be sure.”

“Sure of what?” Bucky asks, smile melting from his face.

“I don’t want to use you,” Steve says. “You aren’t a replacement, you aren’t the same man. I need to be sure that what I feel is for you, not who you used to be.”

“So you’re saying,” Bucky says slowly, “you don’t want this, after all.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Steve says firmly. “I just don’t know. I don’t know what I want.”

Bucky shakes his head, a bitter smile growing on his face, a sarcastic laugh right behind hit. He giggles a little, hysterically. “Great,” he says. “I finally get some idea of what I want, and no one else has a fucking clue.”

“Bucky,” Steve says sharply. “You can’t blame me for—“

“No, I can’t,” Bucky spits out, standing up. “But I wish I hadn’t said anything. I wish I’d never – I’m not him, alright, and I don’t want to be anymore. But I’m always going to be in his shadow, aren’t I? I’m always going to be a ghost.”

Steve opens his mouth to speak, but Bucky throws up his hands.

“Go,” he says loudly, motioning Steve away. “Just go. Don’t bother being conflicted about it, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Bucky collapses onto the couch before Steve has even shut the door behind him, and buries his face in his hands.

*

“Hey. Bucky, wake up.”

He opens his eyes, blinking the bright light out of them, and recoils at Natasha’s face, inches from his own.

“What?” he croaks, squinting up at her. He must’ve fallen asleep, lying here staring at the ceiling. “Why’re – when’d you get back?”

“Last night, and with good timing, too. Look at you, lying around moping over a boy,” Natasha says, shaking her head. “You’re worse than Barton.”

“I’m not moping over a –“ Bucky stops and sighs. He sits up and runs a hand through his hair, pulling it back with an elastic that has been cutting off the circulation in his wrist. “Fine,” he says. “I’m moping over a boy. How’d you know?”

“There are two empty mugs on the coffee table. Plus, Rogers left his jacket here,” Natasha says with a sympathetic smile. “And you look like shit. I put two and two together. Did you two have a fight?”

Bucky’s mind lurches back painfully to that morning. He bites his lip.

“Kind of,” he shrugs. “I, uh, yelled at him. And we – we kissed.”

“Not in that order, I’m hoping,” Natasha says softly. Bucky wants to laugh, but he can’t.

“I told him I loved him,” he admits. His voice is shaking, and he hates himself for it. Where’s his cold heart when he needs it? Where’s the ice that blows up inside him, frosting him over from the inside out to numb the pain? “It was stupid,” he says.

“What’d he say?” Natasha asks. She sits down beside him and slowly wraps an arm around his shoulders, trying to ground him with the contact.

“I don’t know,” Bucky starts, wondering if this is a betrayal, “I don’t know if he would want you to know.”

There is steel in Natasha’s voice as she says, “If he’s said something to hurt you, I sure as hell should know, regardless of his feelings.”

“He loved me – before. Before all this,” Bucky says. “He doesn’t know if he really wants me – like this – or if he’s in love with what I used to be.” He sighs. “It’s not the rejection. I could deal with that,” he shrugs.

“Then what is it?” Natasha asks softly.

Bucky hesitates. “It’s the thought that he still doesn’t see _me_ when he looks at me – just what I used to be,” he says in a low voice. “I spent years trying to figure out who I was, trying to get over what was done to me, rebuilding myself and my life – _I_ did that. And now, now _he’s_ the one confused about who I am?” Bucky growls in frustration. “He said he loved me – but he didn’t know which _me_ he loved.”

When he looks up, he sees Natasha looking down, like this is a possibility she hadn’t considered.

“You knew,” Bucky says with a start. “When did he tell you?”

“Before,” Natasha starts slowly. “Not in so many words, but when we first found out you were the Winter Soldier. He had mourned for you, he knew there was little chance you’d ever come back the way you were, and he still loved you more than anything.”

“He almost died for me,” Bucky says, the words grating in his throat. “And I was still – I was still that _thing._ ”

“You weren’t a _thing,_ ” Natasha says sternly. “You have always been a person. They turned you into a different one, that’s all.”

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, “a person he can’t love anymore.”

Natasha rubs the bridge of her nose and takes a deep breath; it’s a ritual he’s come to associate with Clint Barton’s presence.

 “ _Stupid men_ ,” she mutters under her breath in Russian, shaking her head. “Is that what he really said? Or is that what you think he said? What both of you think?”

“What do you mean?” he asks, confused.

“Whether you’re the boy you grew up as, the Winter Soldier, or the person you are now, I love you, no matter who you are. Whoever you chose to be, I will always love you. I think Steve does, as well. I just don’t think he understands that yet.” Natasha shakes her head at him. Bucky can’t help but throw his arms around her in a hug.

“You always know what to say,” he says quietly in her ear.

“Yeah, well, I’ve been there,” she sighs.

When Bucky pulls away from her, he cups Natasha’s face in a hand.

“I wish I’d had the pleasure of knowing you for longer than this – properly, I mean,” he says, and she smiles at that. He mutters in Russian, so she’ll know that this is a promise, not an echo, “ _I love you, Natalia, now and forever, whoever you chose to be.”_

“Your accent needs work,” she replies, laughing silently. “You’re out of practice.”

“ _And I’m sorry for shooting you_ ,” he continues.

“That’s what I was looking for,” Natasha says. “You know I can’t wear bikinis anymore? It’s terrible.”

“That joke died like ten years ago,” he groans, smiling a little.

“But you’re still smiling,” she says, nudging him with her elbow. Sighing, she stands up, leaving Bucky sitting on the couch.

“I have to go,” she says, checking her phone. “I’m not in town long. I’m leaving for Brazil tonight.”

“Why’re you here? What’d you find in Russia?” Bucky asks, looking at the clock. It’s nearly 6PM, he’s been out of it for hours.

“I’m not sure yet,” she says, her mouth twisting in a way that says, _Nothing I’m ready to share yet._ Bucky is suddenly glad he chose not to go, so Natasha could do this on her own. What little he’d found about _his_ past – _their_ past – had changed everything.

“Alright,” he nods, knowing she’ll tell him when she’s ready and deciding not to push it. “What are you doing here, anyways?”

“I was picking up a few things from my apartment. Got a text from someone who said, and I quote, ‘I think I fucked everything up again.’ Hint: It wasn’t Barton.” Natasha raises an eyebrow at Bucky, who twists his mouth into a frown.

“He said ‘again?’” he asks. “Again? What was the first time?”

He can tell from the look on Natasha’s face that she knows, but she just looks at him and says, “You’ll have to ask him that.”

As she heads to the door, Bucky swallows, his throat dry, and thinks back. Again? Did Steve mean before, in the 40’s?

“Wait,” Bucky calls after Natasha, sweeping Steve’s jacket from the couch and running to grab the door. “Hey, bring this back to Avengers Tower with you, will you? Give it back to him.”

Natasha turns on her heel and sighs exasperatedly.

“Give it to him yourself,” she says. “Or, if he gets his act together, he’ll come back for it himself. I’m not your relationship counselor, Barnes.”

With a wave, she leaves him standing in the hallway, Steve’s jacket hugged tightly to his chest.

*

_Did I just hallucinate Natasha?_ Bucky texts Clint.

_Oh, good,_ Clint replies, _I thought that was just me._

*

The last memory, the odd one out in his snippets of the past, is not a memory. Not quite.

It’s simple:

_He’s warm, he thinks; there’s sunlight, or a fire, or maybe it’s a warm body draped over his. He feels content, happier than he has any right to be. He smiles, or someone smiles at him, and he closes his eyes._

He thinks that was the last time he felt alive.


	7. Chapter 6

Steve doesn’t come back for his jacket the next day, or the next. Bucky would feel relieved – except that he isn’t. He finds himself wishing that Steve _had_ come back, even if it was to reject him, or to fight. When it comes to Steve, he’ll take whatever he can get, even if it’s not his love.

As the week ends, Bucky quickly finds he needs something to occupy his mind. He misses his morning runs; the rhythm, the breathing, the way he knows the limits of his body. (He asks himself if maybe he misses the runs _because_ of Steve; that’s certainly why he has been avoiding them since their fight.)

He goes running in the evening, or late at night, when there are considerably less people around. He keeps a knife on him, just in case. It’s an old habit that’s been hard (and would frankly be  stupid) to break.

Bucky jogs down an almost quiet, dark street one night, counting the steady beat of his feet on the sidewalk. Something feels off. He slows his pace. Bucky’s eyes are drawn to a tiny electronics store down the street. The store is dark – it should be lit up during off hours.

_Shit_ , he thinks. _Shit, shit, shit, why me?_

His movements shift fluidly without conscious thought – he approaches the store silently, allowing himself to melt into the shadows between the streetlamps.

He stops at the corner of an alleyway. There’s a clear line of sight inside the dark storefront; flashlight beams flicker across the walls. When he takes a quick look around the corner, there’s a plain white van (no license plate) waiting to drive off. A muscled man is busy loading a television into the back. He has a gun, given away by its outline underneath his tracksuit.

Bucky takes a deep breath. He could turn around and walk away. He could call the police on a payphone. He has a wad of bills in one pocket, a knife, and the arm. His cell and Avengers ID card are at home, so his movements can’t be tracked. He has no backup, no gun, no body armor.

The van rumbles to a start as someone turns a key in the ignition. He hears hushed voices in a different language (Polish?) that his brain translates for him. They’re ready to leave.

They’ll get away before the police can even get there.

Bucky wonders why he even hesitated.

“Store hours are between 7AM and 5PM,” Bucky says, stepping into the mouth of the alleyway with swagger in his step. “And, huh, it’s after midnight. Looks like they’re closed.”

The thug nearest to him yells to the others, _“Get out here, we’ve got another one of those vigilantes.”_

_“That’s where you’re wrong,”_ Bucky replies in the same language. _“I’m not one of them.”_

A pair of men run out of the store, pulling out handguns. Bucky raises his hands in the air. He’s wearing short sleeves; the bionic arm sparkles in the light from the streetlamp.

“Then you know to walk away,” the first thug says, nodding at Bucky. “This isn’t your territory. Just walk away, bro. Better for you if you do.”

“Better for you if you load that stuff back into the store and drive away,” Bucky says, stepping closer. “You do that, nobody gets hurt.”

One of the men laugh and raise their gun, finger on the trigger.

Bucky crouches down and runs forward. He throws himself into the air, twisting his body like a cork to dodge the bullets that fly at him. The shots ring out loud in the alleyway.  

_Great_ , he thinks, _now I’ve got nine minutes._

The shooter is down before he knows what hit him. He lies unconscious, and Bucky kicks the gun out of his hand. The second man takes cover on the other side of the van. He peers over the side to take a few shots at Bucky. He deflects them with his metal arm.

He ducks for cover, flattening himself against the van door. Bucky drops to the ground, judges the man’s position by his feet, and swings himself up and over the van with his bionic arm. The metal frame gives under the grip and pressure of his hand as he flings himself up into the air. He lands on top of the man.

Bucky disarms him and throws the man’s gun underneath the van, out of reach. He avoids the man’s punches easily. Bucky knocks him unconscious as gently as he can, reminding himself that this guy is just human.

Bucky gets to his feet slowly, listening for any more movements. The first man, the thug, is gone, but he hasn’t run out of the alleyway. Bucky thought he’d heard someone else in the shop.

He straightens, reaching for his knife, but thinks better about it. If he uses lethal weapons, he’ll kill these men.

Bucky stalks quietly into the electronics shop. He doesn’t see the last man, but he can sense him. He’s hiding, waiting, counting on the perfect shot. Bucky’s fingers itch for the twirl of cold steel in his hand.

He takes a step forward and ducks. The thug’s shot goes wide. He stands up from behind the counter and prepares to run. Bucky pushes himself up with his hands and somersaults forwards, knocking the thug off his feet. He scrambles for his gun, but Bucky knocks his hand away and pulls the man up by the front of his tracksuit.

“Thank you for effectively ruining my night,” Bucky growls. “Alright, who are you working for? Or is this a small-time deal?”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” the man spits in his face.

“Yeah,” Bucky sighs, “didn’t think you’d be that easy. How about—“

“FREEZE! NYPD. Put your hands on the back of your head and –“

“Seven minutes,” Bucky says, dropping the thug and turning, holding his hands up where they can see them. “Not bad.” He looks at the policemen in front of them, all of them holding guns to him – not the thug.

A policeman steps forward, pointing a gun at Bucky. “Put your hands on your head, and get down on your knees,” she shouts. Bucky remembers the metal arm.

“Wait,” Bucky says, waving his hands, “I’m an Avenger. Codename Winter Soldier. I’ve got – whatsit – diplomatic immunity. Jurisdiction. Whatever.”

“Hands on your head, sir,” the policeman repeats, stepping forward. Bucky sighs and relents. “Do you have an Avengers ID card on you?” she asks.

“Um,” Bucky swallows, dread sinking in his chest. “Shit. No. I left it at home.”

“Yeah, right,” the policeman says. “On your knees. You’re under arrest.”

The policeman reads him his rights and cuffs him. He closes his eyes as the woman frisks him.

“We’ve got a knife,” she calls, pulling it out of Bucky’s pants. Bucky presses his lips together.

As the policeman reads Bucky his rights and leads him out to the police car, Bucky considers breaking the cuffs and running.

He imagines Steve’s face as he reads the police reports about a man with a metal arm knocking out a group of thugs in a robbery gone wrong and escaping police custody.

Silently, Bucky slides inside the police car.

*

He gives them his alias, ‘James Monroe,’ and lets them process him. Bucky keeps quiet, doesn’t push anything. He lets them think that his metal arm is just a hi-tech prosthesis. He’s managed to keep his real identity and his past a secret from the general public so far. He doesn’t want to screw it all up because of a dumb mistake.

They give him a few minutes to call his ‘lawyer.’ Natasha will be out of town by now, he doesn’t want to call Sam Wilson, and he knows who will pick up if he calls Avengers Tower. He calls Clint.

“Hello?” a voice answers. It’s a woman’s.

“Uh, is Clint Barton there?” he asks. “It’s important.”

“He’s off getting himself into trouble again,” she says airily. “Can I take a message?”

“Are you his girlfriend?” Bucky asks. “This is one of the Avengers. I need something. Urgently.”

“Ew, I’m not his girlfriend,” she answers. “Jesus. He’s, like, forty.” Something clicks in the back of Bucky’s brain.

“Bishop?” he asks, mind straining for her name. “The other Hawkeye?”

“Kate Bishop. The _cool_ Hawkeye,” she corrects. “What can I do for you?”

“I need your help, kid,” he says. “It’s Barnes. I need Clint to bring my Avengers ID down to the police station on –“

“Oh my god,” she laughs. “You’re in jail? How’d that happen?”

“Got caught stopping a robbery,” he huffs. “But I need my—“

“And you forgot to bring your ID?” Kate snorts. “Nice.”

Bucky glances over his shoulder at the policemen. They’re muttering something out of his earshot, giving him strange looks. He tucks his metal arm out of sight when he catches them looking at it. _Shit._

“ _Your team_ fought without IDs for awhile there,” Bucky frowns.

“Yeah, but we were never stupid enough to get caught,” Kate says, amused. “So, what, you need someone to bring you your ID? Or bail you out?”

“ID, please,” he says. “It’s in my apartment, in my wallet. I’ll tell you where it is, kid, if you go get it. I’ll give you fifty bucks.”

Kate bursts out laughing. “I’m rich, dude. And busy. I have class this morning. I’ll call Avengers Tower.”

“Don’t,” he says quickly. “I’ll – I’ll trade training sessions for you and your friends. You’ve seen me fight. You know what that’s worth,” he says desperately.

“That’d work better with Eli or Teddy,” Kate says. “They worship you. I’ll call Avengers Tower, they’ll get Cap or someone to take it down to you. You guys are friends, right?”

“No,” Bucky starts, “Kate, don’t—“

“I gotta go,” she says. “I’ll call the Tower for you. Good luck with jail, or whatever.”

She hangs up a moment later.

“Damn it,” he swears, hanging up the phone with more force than necessary. The policemen behind him approach stiffly.

“Hey,” one says, “if you don’t calm down, we’ll have to sedate you.”

He knows the drugs won’t have any effect on him – they’ll know he’s a superhuman and tase him in a heartbeat. Bucky’s vision fills with blue-white light for a moment before he grits his teeth.

“Sorry,” he says. He lets them take him to the holding cell.

*

It’s no surprise that it’s Steve who comes to pick him up.

Bucky picks himself up from his corner of the holding cell (one intimidating look and flex of his arm and the others had moved aside). He stands there silently as they hand him back his few belongings in a bag, along with his knife. The woman at the desk glares at him when she hands the weapon over, but she tells him to carry his Avengers ID with him next time, if he wants to save himself a world of trouble. He nods. Steve thanks her politely.

He doesn’t say a word to Bucky.

As he heads out of the station, he feels Steve’s eyes on the back of his neck. Bucky tightens his fist, the nails of his right hand digging into his palm. He stops outside the station.

It’s light outside, the street bright and busy with people, policemen and civilians alike streaming in and out of the building. Bucky covers his eyes with a hand.

“I need a minute,” he says to Steve, breathing through his nose. “Just, one minute, before you yell at me. It’s been – it’s been a long time since I let someone cuff me.”

Steve’s jaw tightens, but he doesn’t say a word. He lets Bucky stand there for a few minutes, breathing in the chilly late autumn air of New York, filled with the scents of sewer, road tar, and exhaust. Bucky breathes it in like it’s perfume.

“Alright,” he says, once he’s grounded again. He stands up straight, tucking his hands into the pockets of his shorts. He’s still wearing his running clothes. “Lay it on me. Irresponsible, irrational, etc. Go for it.”

Steve stares at him for what feels like a flat minute, one eyebrow raised. Silently, he walks over to a motorcycle parked illegally between two police cars. He picks the helmet off the seat and hands it to Bucky.

“I don’t need a helmet,” Bucky protests. “ _You_ never wear one.”

Steve sits on the bike and turns the key in the ignition. Bucky looks from him to the helmet in his hands. “Put on the damn helmet, Bucky,” Steve sighs.

Bucky buckles the strap underneath his chin and climbs on behind Steve. Before they move, Steve turns and grabs Bucky’s arms, pulling them around his waist.

“You’re going to fall off,” Steve huffs. “Don’t be an idiot.”

“I thought I already was,” Bucky mutters to himself. Steve must hear him over the roar of the engine, because he smiles as he pulls onto the road. “Thought you were mad at me,” he says into Steve’s ear as they drive down the road.

“Haven’t made up my mind yet,” Steve says.

_About what?_ Bucky doesn’t ask.

*

The ride from the police station might be the longest of his life. Bucky closes his eyes.

He thinks back to the first time he rode somewhere with Steve – the back of a car, while Sam Wilson drove them down the highway .

Steve kept sneaking glances at Bucky, staring at him like he still wasn’t sure he was real. Bucky kept his eyes fixed ahead. Every instinct told him to jump out of the car, to leave, to run. He was so tired of running.

Just like now, he’d sat in that backseat and wondered what Steve Rogers was thinking – why he called him ‘Bucky,’ why he searched for the Winter Soldier, why he said he was taking him _home_. He wondered why he _trusted_ this man.

Now, as Bucky sits on the back of a motorcycle, he no longer questions it. He locks his arms around Steve’s waist under a pretense and just thinks: Why does this man trust _him_?

*

Steve pulls over outside Bucky’s apartment. Bucky takes off his helmet and stands on the curb, handing it back to Steve.

 “I know you read the report. Those men,” Bucky says over the purr of the engine. “Are they…alive?”

Steve looks up, surprised. “Yeah,” he says. “Minor injuries. They were just unconscious.”

“Good,” Bucky sighs, “I thought I might’ve accidentally, y’know.”

“You didn’t,” Steve says. Bucky nods. His stomach feels sour.

“Thanks,” he says, turning towards the door of his apartment building.

Just before the door shuts, he thinks he hears Steve call out to him. Bucky ignores him.


	8. Chapter 7

Bucky calls off his training session with Clint the next Tuesday.

For some reason, Barton doesn’t push it, just mutters into the phone, “Alright, man, whatever. Sorry about Kate. Good luck with – all that.”

Bucky wonders if the rumors of his (fight? falling out? pathetic disaster of a rejection?) with Steve have gotten around the Avengers. He finds that he actually doesn’t give a shit.

The next week, though, Clint doesn’t let him back out of it. Bucky heads over to Avengers Tower in the morning, using the back elevator to avoid all the regulars. He changes into sweats in the locker room and meets Clint in the gym.

“I kind of regret not taking you up on the training offer,” Kate Bishop says thoughtfully from the sidelines. To Bucky’s relief, her Young Avenger friends are absent today. “You’re kinda cute, once you get beyond all that…hobo hair.”

Clint glances warily over at Bucky. Bucky continues his warm-up stretches, nonplussed.

“I forgot my hair scrunchies today,” Bucky says seriously, bending himself into an advanced yoga move Natasha likes to use to scare people who watch her training.

“Think fast,” Kate says. She twists a hair elastic off her wrist and pulls it back from one finger, making a makeshift slingshot. The elastic hits his outstretched hand.

“Thanks,” Bucky smiles, rolling into a sitting position. As he ties his hair back, Clint rolls his eyes.

“He’s too old for you,” Clint says to Kate.

“He’s too old for everyone,” she rolls her eyes. “Except Cap. And Thor, who’s like a thousand years old.”

“I’m _right here_ ,” Bucky says with a frown. Kate rolls her eyes.

“Like it isn’t true,” she snorts.

“She has a point,” Clint says. He stands up from the mat and shakes out his muscles.

“She has no point,” Bucky argues, pushing himself to his feet.

“It’s okay, half of the Avengers have a thing for Captain America,” Kate says breezily. “And the half of my team that’s attracted to men. Even _Clint_ would bang him.”

“Please stop,” Bucky groans, burying his face in his hands.

“Hey, that was only in a game of _Fuck, Marry, Cliff!”_ Clint protests. “I had to kill Stark – you can’t just cliff Captain America!”

“Who’d you marry?” Bucky asks, curious.

“Can we just spar already?” Clint says, turning red. Kate laughs smugly.

Bucky circles around Clint and stops at the other end of the mat, dropping into a defensive stance. Clint rolls his eyes at Kate and does the same, rolling his shoulders.

“No props?” Bucky asks, and then smirks. “You know, even the playing field out?”

“What, you scared you can’t beat me without a handicap, Barnes?” Clint smirks. Bucky laughs.

“I was _actually_ worried that I’m too much for you to handle,” Bucky says.

Clint shoots back, “Oh, I’ve handled more.”

“Jeez,” Kate sighs. “Stop flirting and fight already, boys.”

Bucky wiggles his fingers in a ‘come hither’ motion and lets Clint come to him. He runs across the mat and throws his full body weight at Bucky. Barton scissors Bucky’s body between his legs and twists, taking both of them down in a move he definitely learned from Natasha.

Bucky laughs. He blocks Clint’s punches with his forearms and then rolls over, trying to pin Clint to the mat. Clint pushes with his feet, kicking Bucky in his stomach. Bucky somersaults away. He gets to his feet.

Clint jumps to his feet with an acrobatic move like a trapeze artist. Bucky aims a roundhouse kick at him. Clint dodges, twisting, stepping closer to Bucky. He throws a punch and misses, blocks Bucky’s attempt to elbow him in the throat, and grabs Bucky’s shoulder. He steps closer. Bucky tries to head-butt him.

Clint kicks Bucky’s feet out from underneath him. Bucky goes flying, but not without taking Clint with him.

Clint lands crookedly on top of Bucky, leaving him breathless. Bucky knees him in the stomach as softly as he can. Clint tries to hook an arm around his to lock it into place. They grapple on the ground for a few moments.

If Bucky used the full strength of his arm, he could throw Clint off him and get him in a headlock before he even touched the ground – or he could break Clint’s ribs (and possibly neck) in the process. He hesitates.

Clint reaches up and pulls the elastic out of Bucky’s hair, so his long bangs fall into his eyes. Bucky grunts. He can’t move except to struggle against Clint, both of them caught in a tangle. Clint’s weight is heavy on his chest; he struggles for breath. Bucky tries to kick, to get his legs around Clint.

Clint chuckles before he snaps his calves around Bucky’s. He flips him onto his stomach. Bucky’s arms are released for a moment, long enough for him to reach out for purchase – and long enough for Clint to grab and hold them behind Bucky’s back. Kate cheers.

“Gotcha,” Clint says smugly. He has a knee in Bucky’s back and his arms held tight. Clint frees up a hand to press two fingers into the base of Bucky’s skull. Right where the muzzle of a gun would go.

“Damn it,” Bucky mutters, resting his forehead on the sticky mat.

“You know, you’d beat him for once if you used your left arm,” a voice says from the edge of the room. Bucky’s stomach sinks.

“Yeah, I’d accidentally beat him to death, probably,” Bucky says, muffled by the mat. Clint frees Bucky’s hands and steps away.

Bucky lies still. His hair is still in his eyes, his shoulders sore from Clint’s rough handling, and there are a few choice bruises forming on his right arm and torso. He cranes his neck to look up.

“No, you wouldn’t,” Steve says, approaching Bucky on the mat. “You know how to hold back. You’re holding back already – you’re not fighting to full strength. And I’m not just talking about the arm.”

“Isn’t that the point?” Bucky says to the floor. “You know. Not hurting anyone.”

“The point is, you can’t beat the best fighters in this Tower because you’re afraid of a bruise.” Bucky can hear the frown in Steve’s voice. He feels the mat dip where Steve’s standing next to him. “How do you expect to beat someone who’s _actually_ _stronger than you_ if you aren’t even practicing at the level you’re on now?”

“Some of us don’t go picking fights with guys stronger than us,” Bucky snaps back, rolling onto his back.

Steve looks down at him. His head is silhouetted by the bright fluorescent lights on the ceiling, his face in shadow. There’s a characteristically determined look in his eyes.

“Then fight me,” Steve says. “It’s a fair fight. No props, no holding back. Just you and me.”

Bucky swallows. “I can’t do that,” he says roughly. He’s never sparred with Steve – he’d attacked him a few times in the Tower, before he’d fully broken his programming – but he hasn’t fought him. Not in four years. Not since the Insight Helicarrier.

“Yes, you can,” Steve says.

“You know I can’t,” Bucky whispers. “Don’t – don’t make me do that again. I could hurt you. I could _kill_ you.”

“Steve,” Clint says from the side. “You sure this is a good idea? No means no.”

Steve and Bucky ignore him.

“You won’t hurt me,” Steve says. He holds his hand out to help Bucky to his feet. “I trust you, Bucky.”

_You shouldn’t._

Bucky reaches up to take Steve’s hand.

The anger coils out from Bucky as he kicks Steve’s feet out from under him and pulls him onto his back.

Bucky has the upper hand for only a moment before Steve reacts. It’s enough for him to straddle Steve’s hips, pinning his legs down. He wraps his right hand around Steve’s throat. Steve gasps.

He knocks Bucky’s right arm away with his elbow. Steve bucks his hips up, throwing Bucky forwards a little. He catches himself, but Steve takes advantage of the moment. He wraps his arms around Bucky’s stomach and locks Bucky’s legs into place with his calves.

Steve rolls Bucky over onto his back. Bucky blocks his punches and grabs Steve’s fist in his metal hand. Steve raises the other, but he grabs it, too. He and Steve grapple for a moment, their faces flushing from effort. They roll onto their sides.

Bucky kicks Steve to break his grip and spins away. He rolls smoothly onto his feet.

As Bucky falls back into a defensive stance (one foot back, arms held up to protect his head) he watches Steve. Steve’s shoulders fall back as he stands, his hands curling into fists. There are no weaknesses in his movements, no telltale cracks in his armor. Bucky’s eyes dart around the room. It’s mostly empty, save for the pile of rolled-up mats at the east wall, the punching bags hanging adjacent on another, and Clint and Kate, who are watching open-mouthed from their corner.

Bucky steps forward and throws himself at Steve. He throws punches wildly, aiming for Steve’s torso, moving lightly on his feet. When Steve throws a punch, Bucky blocks or dodges it and steps backwards. Before long, they’re nearly at the wall of punching bags.

Bucky throws a hard hit with his left arm. Steve blocks it with his forearm and throws his hands up for another attack. Bucky fakes a punch to the gut. Steve’s hands go down to protect his stomach, his attention drifting downwards for a moment.

The knock from the punching bag nearly throws Steve off his feet.

The bag swings back to Bucky like a tetherball. He catches it. It won’t knock Steve off kilter again – he’s lost the element of surprise, but Bucky uses it like a shield between the two of them. When Steve catches the other end of the punching bag and aims a kick at Bucky instead, he ducks. Steve chases him along the wall of swinging punching bags.

They weave amongst the bags until Bucky breaks away, back into the clear area of the mat. Steve punches wildly, knocking Bucky back. He tries to block all of Steve’s blows, but he’s quick. This time, when Bucky is backed up halfway across the mat, it’s because _Steve_ has the upper hand.

Suddenly, Bucky crouches low. He thrusts his leg out, hooking a foot around Steve’s ankle to send him to his knees, but Steve falls down on top of Bucky instead.

Bucky groans under the sudden crush of Steve’s weight. He tries to throw Steve off him with a roll of his hips and a shove, but Steve is relentless. Bucky punches him, hard. Steve rolls with it.

Steve bends his arm around Bucky’s right arm, locking it down. Bucky can’t wriggle from the strength of Steve’s grasp, no matter how hard he tries. He’s trapped. He looks up at Steve. He can hear his blood pounding in his ears, his face flushed, adrenaline rushing through his veins. This is it, unless – unless –

Bucky wraps his legs tightly around Steve’s hips and slams his robotic arm down.

He uses its strength to push him and Steve over in a somersault, rolling Steve onto his back. Bucky lands on top of Steve. He straddles Steve’s hips tightly with his knees, locks Steve’s legs down underneath his calves, and manhandles his arms into a hold. He puts his full weight into holding Steve fast to the mat.

He grunts, struggling. Steve drives his hips, his chest, his head up to fight Bucky, but he can’t break out of his grip. Inside his head, a faint voice says, _Complete your mission_ , a voice that Bucky vehemently ignores.

Finally, Steve goes limp.

Bucky stays there for a moment. He tightens his grip. Underneath him, he feels Steve’s breath hitch, the pulse point underneath his hand beating a mile a minute. Steve’s body is warm from exertion, and Bucky’s blood is running hot. He looks into Bucky’s eyes, searching.

“Is that what you wanted?” Bucky snarls.

He releases Steve. Bucky pulls himself to his feet and stalks away towards the door.

“Bucky,” Steve calls.

“Holy hell,” he hears Kate Bishop say faintly from the other end of the room.

Bucky hears Clint taking before the door to the gym swings shut, but he’s already halfway to the gym by the time it occurs to him that this was a fight he might not have wanted to win.

*

Bucky slams his locker open and pulls out his duffel bag. Angrily, he shuffles through his bag for his hoodie. He’s sweaty and tired, but he needs to get out of here before Steve comes to find him. He’s already been accosted by Scott Lang, who decided to take his leave of the locker room with one look from Bucky.

Steve doesn’t seem to care that Bucky had stomped out on him in a bad mood, though, because the locker room door swings open. One of the hinges comes loose as it bangs against the wall, but Steve doesn’t notice.

“Bucky,” he says, striding across the tile floor. “Why’d you run out of there? You –“

“I shouldn’t have fought you,” Bucky mutters, going still. He stares into his duffel bag.

“I asked you to,” Steve says. “Are you alright? If you—“

“I’m fine,” Bucky grits out. “I’m fine. But you – you could’ve gotten hurt. It was dangerous.”

“But I didn’t get hurt,” Steve says, stepping into Bucky’s space. Bucky picks up his duffel bag and holds it between him and Steve. “I’m fine, alright? Look at me.”

Bucky doesn’t look at him, though. He looks down. “Right, you are this time,” he says, turning his back on Steve to head for the showers, hoping Steve won’t follow him. “But it’s not happening again,” he promises. “It was a mistake.”

Bucky steps inside a shower cubicle and closes the curtain behind him. He sets his duffel down on the bench.

“Bucky,” Steve says outside the cubicle. “Don’t run away from me this time. Please. Come on, I’m fine, you’re fine. No one got hurt. Let’s go get some sodas and –“

“No,” Bucky croaks. “I can’t, Steve. I – can’t.”

“Why not?” Steve asks.

It’s easy to say it when he can’t see Steve’s eyes.

“I can’t do this anymore,” Bucky answers. “I’m not him, alright? I’m not your Bucky. Leave me alone, Steve.”

He can’t see Steve on the other side of the heavy plastic curtain, but he can hear his feet against the damp tile, the sound of his breath in the heavy air, the way he gulps down the air like he’s suffocating.

Bucky wants nothing more than to push the shower curtain aside and reach for Steve – to search out comfort in his touch – but his hands feel heavy. He turns to the shower further inside the cubicle and turns it on. The water heats up quickly. Bucky stands, half in the stream, half in the cubicle, still clothed. He waits for the sound of Steve’s footsteps to echo across the locker room.

“Don’t –“ Steve says, voice low, “don’t say that.” Bucky hears him take a shaky breath. “You _are_ Bucky; more than you know. And you –“

“I’m not,” Bucky snaps loudly. His voice rings off the tiles. “I told you, I’m not some ghost.”

“No, you’re not,” Steve says levelly. “But you decided to call yourself Bucky – _you_ made that decision, I didn’t. That makes you Bucky, and that means that –whoever Bucky is? That’s up to you.”

Bucky looks down at the water from the shower as it runs down the drain. He doesn’t say anything. His t-shirt is soaked through except for one sleeve, and his hair is lank and damp from the steam. When Bucky shifts where he’s standing, his shoes make a wet squelch against the tile.

“Know why I called you James?” Steve asks, voice so quiet Bucky’s got to strain to hear it. “I thought you wanted to be James,” he chuckles humorlessly. “I think I really wanted to separate the two of you in my head. I didn’t want to force his – _that_ identity on you. But I did. And I’m sorry.”

Bucky still doesn’t say anything. He _can’t_ speak, or move, because he doesn’t trust himself to.

On the other side of the plastic curtain, Steve sighs. Bucky hears him move and watches his feet from underneath the curtain. Steve looks like he’s leaning against the tile wall on one side.

“There’s nothing I can say that will make up for what I did, Bucky,” Steve says. “It’s no better than what people have done to you before, wishing you were someone other than who _you_ want to be. I hope you can forgive me for that. But I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t.”

Bucky rests a hand on the wall to steady himself. The steam from the scalding shower has filled the cubicle by now. It makes the corners of his eyes sting.

“I’ll leave you alone, if that’s what you really want, because that’s your choice,” Steve says. “But, before I do –“ Bucky’s heart is racing, and he hears Steve take a deep breath “—I just want you to know how I feel. Even if you remembered who you are… _this_ is who you are. All of it…is a part of you. And I love all of you, always have, always will.”

Bucky starts to move towards the curtain, but he stops himself.

“It’s not going to be easy,” he finds himself saying in his moment of hesitation. “I’m not always a good person.”

“Neither am I,” Steve says.

Laughing, Bucky steps forward to push aside the plastic curtain.

“Yeah, right,” he says dryly. He pokes his head out into the locker room. Steve looks over from the wall that divides this shower cubicle from the others. He looks smaller somehow – shoulders slumped, arms held to his chest – and Bucky reaches out and sets a hand on his shoulder.

“I lied to you, y’know,” Bucky says. His eyes flash with an imprint of a time long past, a fragment of a moment.

Steve blinks at him. “What?” he asks.

“I remember you,” Bucky shrugs. “I mean, I don’t – but I do. I know that I knew you. I know your face, I know I promised you I’d always be there for you. But I don’t remember anything else. You’re – all I have left, I guess.” Steve tilts his head to the side.

“You know that’s not true,” Steve says. “You have Natasha, now. Clint. Sam.”

“Yeah. I guess you’re right.” Bucky smiles weakly.

Steve stares at him for a long moment, eyes drinking him in. “Y’know,” he starts, about to say something stupid, probably, but Bucky interrupts him.

“Oh, come on,” Bucky sighs long-sufferingly, opening his arms. “You’re not too manly for a hug. C’mere.”

 Even though Bucky is half-soaked and sweaty, Steve steps forward and hugs him tightly. His fingers clench in the soaked fabric of Bucky’s t-shirt and he buries his face in Bucky’s shoulder. Bucky closes his eyes and presses his lips to the top of Steve’s head, so light he probably won’t even feel it.

“Thought I’d lost you again,” Steve says into Bucky’s neck. “When you moved out. I knew I’d driven you away somehow, that I screwed it all up by expecting you to be like you used to be. _I’m_ not like I used to be.”

“I’ve hated being mad at you,” Bucky sighs. “But, I think I can only take so much emotional confession for one day.”

“I can pencil you in for next week,” Steve’s voice comes, muffled. “Tuesday, 2PM. Barnes, J.B.: emotional confession of undying love. Note: bring flowers.”

“Undying love?” Bucky snorts. “We’ve each died, like, _once._ At least.”

“Hence the flowers,” Steve says. He rests his chin on Bucky’s shoulder, but doesn’t release him from the hug. “Maybe a fruit basket. They make those edible bouquets now; that’s pretty useful.”

“If I didn’t know better, Rogers, I’d think you were trying to woo me,” Bucky says, voice dripping sarcasm.

“And if I was? Trying to woo you?” Steve asks. He pulls back from Bucky a little.

“I’m a lot harder than a bouquet,” Bucky frowns. “A steak dinner, at _least._ ”

“At least,” Steve hums, then whispers, “Can I kiss you?”

“Thought you’d never ask,” Bucky drawls, but his voice fades out when Steve’s chin dips and his lips find the side of Bucky’s neck. Steve presses a gentle kiss to Bucky’s neck, an inch from his jugular. Then another, up closer to his chin. Bucky’s eyes flutter shut.

“Steve,” Bucky says a moment later, as Steve’s lips brush his jaw. “My lips are up here.”

“Are they?” Steve says, voice full of sarcastic wonder. “Where?”

“You’re an asshole,” Bucky says.

“I thought you said lips,” Steve frowns.

Bucky rolls his eyes and kisses Steve.

*

Bucky keeps waiting for the axe to fall, but it doesn’t.

He meets Steve at the park to go running, as usual – except now, Steve kisses him hello underneath the orange leaves of a tree until Sam tells them to get a room. He keeps his phone on during the nights he spends at his apartment, in case Steve needs to talk to him, and Steve returns the favor. When they go to the movies, Steve makes an effort not to get them kicked out.

It’s…nice, Bucky would say. Even when Danvers corners him in the kitchen one morning to give him what he _thinks_ might be the shovel talk. (Which would have been _much_ more effective if Steve hadn’t walked in halfway through in pjs, with a couple of hickeys above the neck of his shirt that Bucky _swore_ should’ve faded by breakfast time.)

Sometimes, Steve turns and smiles at him, easy as anything, and Bucky thinks that this is how it’s supposed to be. This is just the next step in their little dance.

Yeah, nice is what Bucky’s going to call it.

*

“It’s not going to last,” Tony says casually.

Bucky looks up from the car magazine he’d grabbed from Tony’s workbench. He glances over at Tony, who’s poking at his bionic arm with a screwdriver.

“Uh, what? Do I need new plating or wiring or something?” Bucky asks.

“Huh?” Tony says, looking up from the mechanics of the arm before his brain catches up with his mouth. “Oh. Right. No, your arm’s fine, just needs a little recalibration. I mean, you and Rogers. The honeymoon phase isn’t going to last.” Bucky gives Stark a long look.

“I’m just concentrating on making it _past_ the honeymoon phase,” Bucky sighs after a moment.

“Point,” Tony says, tilting his head to the side. “But, I mean, you both have a lot of issues you’ve gotta work through. Which I get, a freeze-dried supersoldier from World War II and his amnesiac ex-best friend slash ex-assassin. Comes with the territory. I’m amazed no one’s having a big gay breakdown.” He waves the screwdriver around in the air as he speaks.

“Does this have a point, Stark?” Bucky sighs. Tony pokes something in the arm with the screwdriver and Bucky feels the joints shift back to their default position.

“The lovely-dovey shit will end,” Tony says. “It always does. Eventually, you’ll get tired of having crazy super-strong acrobatic sex on every surface in sight, and you’ll have to learn to just live with each other.”

“I’m not moving into your harem of a Tower,” Bucky smirks as he tries to ignore the feeling of dread building in his stomach.

“You wish,” Tony snorts. He exchanges the screwdriver for a pair of pliers and turns back to the arm. “That’s when it gets hard,” he says seriously. “That’s when you start to make compromises, and that’s when you can screw it all up if you aren’t careful.”

Bucky’s mouth hardens into a thin line. He didn’t think he’d be getting this speech from _Stark,_ of all people.

“You still have those nightmares, right?” Tony asks quietly. “We all have bad days. And that’s where it gets tricky – you’re going to want to spare him from it all. You’ll figure that the compromise is hiding the pain, so he won’t see you hurting.” Tony sets down the pliers. “Don’t. You have a – what does Wilson call it? – a support staff built up. Rogers, Romanoff; Me, if you want. Talk to us. To _him._ ”

Bucky gives Tony a weak smile. “Because that’s all there is to it,” he mutters.

“I never said it was easy,” Tony sighs. “You two have been dancing around each other for _months_ , and you’ve already fallen out because of one misunderstanding. Don’t make the same mistake twice. How many times can you two lose each other before it sticks?”

Bucky frowns. “He’s talked to you about all that, hasn’t he?” he says. Tony rolls his eyes.

“As if he had to,” he says, which means _yes_. The two of them seem pretty close. “If you would’ve seen him moping around the Tower like a kicked puppy, you would’ve figured it out, too.”

“You give this advice to everyone?” Bucky asks as Tony reboots the arm and closes the maintenance panel.

“Only people I like,” Tony says with a smile, slapping the arm with a _clang._ “Rogers got his variation, with extra ‘Dear Lord, I’ve been telling you to hit that for _months’_ on the side. So, anyways, test her out. How’s she feel?”

“Why is my arm a ‘she’?” Bucky asks, flexing his metal bicep. He wiggles the fingers around.

“Because, she’s a work of robotics art, if I do say so myself,” Tony sighs dreamily. “Although, if I were you, I’d watch out – pretty sure Vision has a crush on her.”

“Seems to be working fine,” Bucky says, testing out the joints to see how smoothly they expand and tighten.

“You know,” Tony says mischievously, “I can always add a couple extra special _improvements_ for you two, if you’re into –“ he cuts off with a laugh as Bucky sends him a glare. “Alright, I get it, don’t mock the guy with the lethal arm you just upgraded.”

Bucky laughs as he stands up to leave. “Hey, Stark,” Bucky says, patting him on the shoulder. “Thanks.”

Tony smiles, but he winces a little at Bucky’s touch. “Yeah, yeah, alright, but we’re not done yet – I think I need to refigure the sensitivity on the strength perception a little.”

*

The next time Steve comes by Bucky’s apartment, Bucky pulls him in by his shirt collar and kisses him breathless. Steve pulls back a few moments later, a ridiculously smug look on his face.

“What was that for?” he asks.

“Nothing,” Bucky shrugs, careful not to accidentally tear Steve’s shirt (again). “Just thinking about how lucky I am to have you.”

“And you call _me_ a sap, you schmaltzy little cheeseball,” Steve laughs.

“Little?” Bucky protests, standing as tall as Steve in his bare feet. Steve smirks at him. “Hey, I –“

Of course, Steve cuts Bucky off by picking him up and carrying him across his apartment, dumping him unceremoniously on his bed.

“You were saying?” Steve says, climbing on top of Bucky and straddling his hips.

Bucky’s protests don’t last long after that.

*

After he’s had nothing for eight weeks, Natasha calls.

“You find what you’re looking for?” he asks her. Bucky can hear her smile down the line.

“It wasn’t what I was looking for,” she says. “But what I needed to find.”

“That’s good,” Bucky nods, although she can’t see him. “You coming back?” He misses her, he realizes suddenly, although it should’ve been obvious.

“Not yet,” Natasha replies. “I’ve got one more thing to do. One last – one final place to visit. I’d like you to be there, with me,” she says. _I don’t want to do this alone_ , hangs unsaid between them.

“Are you sure?” Bucky asks slowly. “I mean, you don’t want Barton to go? He’s, I mean, you two go way back.”

“I’m sure,” Natasha answers. “There’s something you should see, too. But, it’s rough. You might not want to see it.”

Bucky considers this for a moment. She hasn’t told him details, meaning she’s either concerned that this isn’t a secure line, or that she knows whatever she’s found is important enough to Bucky that he’ll disregard his gut and go anyways. Whatever it is, it doesn’t sound easy.

He pauses for a moment before asking, “Can I bring Steve?”

To his surprise, Natasha laughs.

“Sure,” she says. “I knew you two would get your act together eventually.”

*

“Looks like we’ve come full circle, eh, Rogers?” Natasha says, walking up behind them at the graveyard gate. Her hair is longer, she’s wearing an unfamiliar dark trench coat, and she looks tired, but she smiles when she sees them.

She told them to meet outside a lonely, freezing, overgrown cemetery in Russia, in a city Bucky’s never heard of that’s covered in snow. Bucky shivers. The wind cuts through him like a knife, even though Steve stands close.

For some reason, Steve grins at Natasha’s greeting.

“So you guys make a thing about meeting in creepyass graveyards?” Bucky snorts. His breath is mist in the cold winter air. “Remind me why I’m friends with you?”

“Well, the –“ Steve starts, smirking, but Natasha holds up a gloved hand.

“If you answer that question, you will regret it,” she sniffs.

Natasha reaches out and pushes the gate open. It creaks on its hinges, but she ignores it. Bucky follows her heels as she walks into the graveyard.

Snow begins to fall again, blanketing the cemetery with a muffled hush. The stones at the far end of the gate are washed out and crumbling from hundreds of years of weather. Natasha walks slowly down the side of the fence. She stops halfway.

They trail behind her as she strides down a row of headstones. These are almost seventy years old – but still not as old as Steve and Bucky.

She stops, almost at the end of the row, and kneels to brush the snow off one gravestone.

Bucky grabs Steve’s wrist with his gloved hand to stop him a few feet away. Natasha stares at the stone, her head dipping low, hair falling over her face.

“My parents,” she says in a hushed whisper. “My real parents.”

Bucky stops beside her and reads the headstone. They share a date of death.

“I’m sorry,” he says, meaning it.

“So am I,” she says.

She hasn’t brought flowers, or a trinket to leave, just her silence and her sorrow. Bucky wraps an arm around her shoulders and lends Natasha his strength, so she can take a moment to be vulnerable. The cemetery is quiet but for the sound of the snowfall. Bucky looks upwards into the sky and thinks about the three of them, and how they can love so deeply when they’ve lost so much.

He watches Natasha’s breath curl up into the air for a moment and feels a strange sense of vertigo; the moment passes, and it’s gone.

“Let’s go,” she sighs. Natasha turns on her heel.

Bucky shoves his hands into his pockets and follows her, Steve at his side.

*

“They took me – and a few other girls – from an orphanage,” Natasha says. “1951. They were trying to recreate the Erskine’s serum, unsuccessfully. Everyone was.”

She’s making instant coffee with water heated on the stove of her safehouse. Bucky sits quietly at a chair at the kitchen table. Steve’s mouth is a thin line.

 “The KGB’s specialty was something different, though,” Natasha continues her story. “Memory modification. They would take a subject, hook them up, and,” she pauses, “well, you know. They could wipe existing memories – or implant false ones.”

 “Did you get them back?” Bucky asks, breaking the silence. Natasha pauses from where she’s pouring the hot water into three chipped mugs. She looks over her shoulder at him.

“No,” Natasha says. “I have what I have. Some things, I can remember if I have a visual cue, but I can’t get back what I’ve lost.” She turns back to pour hot water from the kettle. “Sorry,” she adds.

Bucky just shrugs.

“I still did some digging,” Natasha says, “to fill in what I didn’t know. I knew I had programming and modified memories; from there, it was an easy leap – the KGB didn’t have the funding or the expertise. So they formed the Red Room, a secret black ops facility for training covert operatives.” Her mouth is twisted down into a frown as she turns to hand Steve and Bucky their coffee. “Under the table, the Red Room was funded and effectively run by HYDRA.”

“So, HYDRA fought _both sides_ in the Cold War?” Steve says, eyebrows furrowing. Natasha smiles ironically.

 “So did I,” she says. “HYDRA was always about creating chaos, and forming their own order in the aftermath. The Black Widow project created the perfect tools for them to use.” Natasha’s voice is as cold as the wind.

“Did they use Zola’s serum on you?” Bucky asks. He can’t miss the way Steve looks away, eyes cast downwards in shame, like he always does whenever someone brings up the many failed attempts to replicate him.

“Not quite,” Natasha says. “It made us age slowly, made us faster and more agile, while Erskine’s serum and Zola’s attempts favored brute strength.”

“And how much of a hand did Zola have in all this?” Steve asks.

“Not much, honestly,” Natasha says. “There was a Russian base stationed in the Alps in ’45—“ Steve looks up, surprised “—originally a research and testing facility, later a training facility. Zola helped form bases all over, but he only had a limited reach. He never had a hand in the Black Widow project – the Russians kept that one close to their chest. From what I’ve found,” Natasha looks at Bucky, “once he finished the groundwork on the ’Winter Soldier,’ he handed the project down.”

“To the Russians,” Bucky frowns.

“To the Russians,” Natasha says with a wry toast from her coffee mug. Bucky realizes he hasn’t even touched his coffee yet. He doesn’t think he wants to.

“So, the Red Room uses his technology to create their own agents,” Steve says, frowning over his mug. “Then what?”

“Then, by the time I was sent to the Alps for training,” Natasha says, “the Winter Soldier was training Black Widow operatives between his missions. And that’s how we met.”

Steve looks sharply over at Bucky. “You didn’t tell me that,” he says softly, his head tilting to the side to look at Bucky across the table. Bucky shifts uncomfortably under his gaze.

“Wasn’t my story to tell,” Bucky replies with a shrug.

“Do you…remember each other ?” Steve asks. Bucky meets Natasha’s eye and looks away.

“Kind of,” Bucky shrugs. He looks down at the scratched-up wooden tabletop and picks at a scratch with his fingernail. “I used to call her the Itsy Bitsy Spider, for some reason. I remember…fondness.” He scowls, deepening the scratch. “Fondness as I taught a child how to _kill_.”

“Bucky,” Natasha sighs, leaning forwards in her seat. “You know what they did to me?” When he looks up at her, her lips are pursed. “They made me think I had years of ballet. I could dance for you, flawlessly, right here in this kitchen – but I’ve never danced ballet in my life. They _played_ with my mind, like a cat and a ball of string. They did the same thing to you, and yet we still made a basic human connection.” She reaches across the table to cover his hand with hers. “Think about that.”

Bucky looks up at Steve, who’s quietly watching the two of them.

“It was only for a brief time,” she says, patting Bucky’s hand once before she pulls away. “They trained me, gave me the reflexes and the skills I needed, and modified my memories to make me the perfect assassin and spy. And then they sent me back to the KGB, where I became a Black Widow operative.” Natasha sighs. “And the rest, as they say, is history.”

“They put me on ice,” Bucky frowns. “Around the time that you left, I think. Don’t remember why. But they realized keeping me out was too risky. Maybe the mind wipes didn’t work so well on me at first.”

“I might have an answer to that, actually,” Natasha says. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a small flash drive.

“Natasha—” Bucky starts.

“This,” she says, brandishing the flash drive, “is the complete file on the Winter Soldier.”

For a moment, the apartment is too quiet. Bucky feels like he’s going to stare a hole into the damn thing.

“What I found for you a few years ago was just a dossier,” Natasha says. “I didn’t know there was anything else. But this has everything – all the notes I could find, every mission report and scientific file and transcript.” Bucky stares at it. “Sixty-nine years of your time with HYDRA. All of it. For you.”

Natasha looks Bucky square in the eye so he’ll know what she’s saying. This is the answer to almost every question Steve can’t answer for him – it’s horrible, and it’s scary, but it’s the truth. Bucky’s been looking for that for a long time.

“You should burn it,” Steve says quietly, staring blankly ahead at the flash drive.

“What?” Bucky spits, turning to gape at Steve.

“Seriously?” Natasha says. “I killed, like, ten people for this.”

“I don’t think –“ Bucky starts, but he stops and turns to Natasha. “Ten people?” he asks. “ _Really?”_

“Well,” she mutters, “there are ten people who _wish_ I’d just killed them instead.”

“That thing’s gonna cause you a lot of pain, Buck,” Steve says, crossing his arms over his chest with a scowl. “It’s in the past. It’s your choice, but think about it. You don’t remember that stuff for a reason. If you want to keep it buried so it can’t haunt you, no one would blame you.”

Natasha chews on her lip. “He has a point,” she says. “I went on this trip for _my_ reasons, and I knew what I was getting into. You didn’t come with me for your own reasons. They were valid.  I’m not going to pretend that I’m going to sleep easier knowing all the things I know now,” she shrugs. “You’re the only person who can decide whether or not it’s worth it.”

Bucky finally takes a sip of his (cold and utterly _disgusting)_ coffee for the moment of thought it allows him. He sets his mug down on the table.

“The way I see it,” Bucky says, “there are a lot of people out there who I owe it to to remember their faces. They had lives, families, and I took that away from them. If I run from the past, then I’m forgetting what I did in a way that’s a lot worse than just _not remembering_ it.”

Natasha gives a small nod in understanding.

“I have a lot of questions,” Bucky says. “Things I need to know. That flash drive could have a lot of answers for me.”

“Some things don’t have answers,” Steve warns.

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy, Steve,” Bucky says. “Not everything that’s worth it, or that needs to be done _is._ ”

Bucky reaches across the table and takes the flash drive from Natasha. He rolls it over in his left hand and closes his fist around it. He could crush it easily, if he wanted.

“Then you don’t have to do it alone,” Steve says stubbornly. “If that’s your choice, alright. I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Me, too,” Natasha agrees. “You know I will.”

Bucky looks between the two of them for a long moment. He pockets the flash drive.

“Aw, shucks,” Bucky laughs, kicking his feet onto the table. “You two make me blush.”

Steve’s face breaks out into a smile before Natasha shoves Bucky’s feet off the table. The sound of his laughter fills Bucky’s chest with warmth.

*

What he knows is this:

His name is Bucky Barnes. He is an Avenger, a soldier, a survivor, a friend, a lover. He is many things – perhaps one day, he will be a hero.

He will never remember who he is.

That can’t stop him from loving Steve Rogers.

*

_The End_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: The “guys used to go by nicknames back in the day” thing is based on something my grandma told me years ago. I have no idea how factual it is, but it was true for her.
> 
> And, apparently it’s the done thing now to link to your tumblr? [This is my tumblr.](http://sarriane.tumblr.com) _~*follow for more soft gay avengers*~_


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